TakeruK

Usually the online LOR are submitted by the prof, not by the student. You start the application and you can probably skip to the LOR part after filling in the basic information. You fill in your prof's name, school, and email then they get an email from the system with logon info to access the LOR part of your application. However, sometimes this email does not get sent until you finish your entire application (which is annoying!).

I agree, just leave it blank if there isn't any more information that you need to share

I don't think a single B+ is a sign that you are being asked to drop out. If all your grades are "minimal pass", then that's one thing, but just one B+ might just mean that your advisor thought you should have worked harder on that course. I also don't think the fact that no one ever mentions a grade below A- means that no one ever gets below A-. People are less likely to share grades they aren't proud of.

The conference is a month away at this point, right? I'm assuming that you will only be able to attend if your paper is selected? Or do the organizers expect everyone to attend, but only the selected papers will present? I'd say that while the almost 2 month delay from their original posted notification date is unusual, it's not that weird to have to wait until ~1 month before a conference starts to find out if you are presenting, especially if it's a small meeting. For a meeting with ~200 attendees, the abstract submission deadline was ~6 weeks before the conference date, and the selection was made ~4 weeks prior. In another meeting of ~60 attendees, we submitted abstracts ~5 weeks before and found out ~3 weeks prior. Both of these were national conferences too. But all these dates/deadlines were published ahead of time and the organizers stuck to them! Maybe this conference has a reputation for being very delayed! I've been on the organizing side of a meeting before and everyone is working as a volunteer, so sometimes delays happen. However, I'm not excusing their extreme tardiness. I think if they had put a deadline up, then they should stick to it (or update people if it changes), so I'd be annoyed and frustrated and worried etc. too. My advice depends on who is paying for this conference: If you are not the one paying, then I talk to whoever is paying (supervisor?) and let them know what's going on. They would be the ones paying more if you miss out on the best pricing for travel arrangements, hotels, etc., you are not the one eating the costs. But if it's a good opportunity for you, the supervisor probably would okay with it since it's clearly a situation out of your control. Since they are the one paying though, you should keep them in the loop! If you are paying your own way (including making use of travel grants) then I think you should decide on a date as a "point of no return" (i.e. you won't be attending if you don't hear from them by this date) and send one last email to the organizer then. Typically, ticket prices are still decent up to 2 weeks before date of travel. I'd prefer to book at least 3 weeks in advance though. So pick a date that you feel safe with and send one last email saying something like "look, I have to make travel arrangements now, is there any update?" Hopefully you will get a response either way. I'd say wait until the date of no return because you don't run any risk of "annoying" the organizer and getting rejected, since if you don't hear from them by this date, you would not go anyways. Also keep in mind that there could be other conference opportunities to present your work too, if it takes too long and prices go too high, it might be a better use of your funds/supervisor funds for a different travel/presentation opportunity!

I understand how you feel! But while every interaction with a potential supervisor is incredibly stressful and exciting to us, to them, we're just another prospective student. They don't want to invest too much time into us at this stage! They will speak to dozens more this year and probably hundreds over their career. So, I'd say to breathe, relax, and calm down. You did the right thing in sending a short thank you reply after the interview, but what would you expect him to reply with? The missing word isn't that crucial, what could it be? The most important part was his instruction -- send him an email reminding him who you are AFTER you send in your application. Once you've applied, just send him a note saying that you and him had a chat about X on date Y. Mention something about you that you think would trigger his memory of the conversation (after all, by that time, he has probably spoken to many students): he said your experience was "neat" -- do you remember why exactly? You could write it down now so you don't forget. As for the campus visit, it sounds like a major department event. He's not going to forget about it. Depending on their policy (do they invite all applicants? only the best ones? only the ones they've already accepted?), you will hear about the visit later. If you really want, you can just bring it up in your email after you apply (e.g. "you mentioned something about a campus visit during our conversation in August." and ask for some more details maybe). But for now, the best thing to do is move onto the next potential supervisor and prepare for that chat. Or, if you are all done, then just focus on making your application awesome. I think you shouldn't contact this prof again until you've submitted the application!!

It's very normal for people to be working on publishing work from a previous job while working on a new one. For almost every paper I've been on, the work on the paper itself was done after I left the position (and was working somewhere else). However I should note that I wasn't the first author on any of these, so the level of commitment required was much lower. But, when I was working in one position, a newly hired permanent researcher was working on publishing her MSc work in a completely different field. When I was doing my MSc, I was still doing some work from my BSc thesis. In fact, even a year after my MSc started, I was still presenting my BSc work (including work that I added to while at my MSc school). When the paper was finally published, I had two affiliations listed (both old and new schools) since I had used resources at both schools. Of course, when I started my MSc program, I let my supervisor know that I was still interested in working with my BSc supervisor to finish up an interesting project. He said it was fine as long as I keep up with my obligations to my MSc studies. Now, I am about to start a PhD program (moving in a few days!!) and I'm making plans to continue working with my MSc supervisor and write a paper on my MSc work (hopefully my first first-author work) while in my PhD program. Again, I cleared it with the people at the new school and they also said to go for it -- as long as I don't overwork myself! I'd think it's a good idea to let your new supervisor know what you're up to academically. If you think it would somehow hurt you, then I guess you don't have to. But, I think it will show your new supervisor that you are actively engaged in the field as well as showing that you are the type that finishes what you start. It seems like very few research project fit nicely in predefined boundaries (such as the term of a 2 year Masters degree) so I think it's normal. However, if you are finding that your old project is taking away too much time from your current obligations, then maybe it's time to reassess the situation. After I finished officially working on one project (that was not in my field at all), I found that continuing to work on that paper took away a lot of time from my courses and my BSc thesis project (which was in my field). After discussing it with everyone involved, I decided that it was best to let someone else from the original group take over the project and I would move down to second author. I think this worked out for me since it was a paper published in a journal completely outside my field!

Just to be clear: You won't be able to submit only your AW score from first test date and only Verbal + Quant scores from second test date. Even with ScoreSelect, you have to submit all scores from the same test date. So if you submit both test scores, they will see that you didn't complete the AW section on the second test date. I think you know this though and are asking if it's okay for schools to see the Incomplete in AW because you got 6.0 in the last test. But remember that many applications will ask you to self-report scores. They will ask for AW, V, and Q scores and ask you for your reference number and test date. You will be forced to report all the scores from the same test date -- so you will have to choose between the good AW and bad V/Q scores or good V/Q and incomplete AW score. In addition, I think not giving 100% effort here will reflect poorly on you as an applicant.

No, you should probably report all your scores from the same test date. Even with the new ScoreSelect, you can only pick scores from the same test date. So if you took the GRE multiple times, it's fine to self-report the best set of scores (from the same date), but you shouldn't pick the best in each section and report separately. My reasoning is that if you cherry pick the way you describe, your answer will never match up with any ETS official report. I guess it might be okay if you disclose what you're doing but that might make your response too long-winded. In addition, cherry picking data is a big no-no in research and that kind of behaviour might cast you in a negative light. Just my opinion though, I haven't dealt with this situation personally.

I know I don't fit your mindset of "doing it for passion and interest", and I'm not in the social sciences either. But it seems like your post would label people like me as "anti-PhD" and/or "don't really want a PhD" (as opposed to "those who are actively engaged and interested in the field"). I just want to say that the people you describe (e.g. me) do have passion for our work. I am actively engaged and interested, doing all the things that someone who wants to enter the academic world should be doing (performing research, attending seminars, reading pre-prints of papers, attending and presenting at conferences etc.). But you don't have to be willing to be devoted to the field (i.e. by being willing to do it under any conditions) in order to count as being "passionate". I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with this level of commitment to the field/work -- each person has different desires in life and you just gotta do what makes you happy! However, I think it's a little bit naive to consider that the only reason to get a PhD is to completely devote yourself to the field. Or that if you are not willing to do so, you are "anti-PhD' or "don't really want one". And I don't think I actually go around and tell people NOT to get PhDs (unless their career goals do not require PhDs). I just think it's important to know that not everyone who gets a PhD will get the job they are looking for, and especially not if you are set on a particular location. Maybe I'm just taking your post too personally, but I just felt compelled to respond based on the words you used!

My application season was last year but I'll join in anyways Last fall, I was wishing many departments would update their websites to not look like they were made in the 1990s. Mouseover navigation bars = bad. Long complicated navigation tree with many headings of similar names = bad. One super long webpage with all the information in one place but no sectioning = really hard to find something you saw before = bad. Contradicting information on different webpages = bad!! Oh, and I wish every school had a big shiny red "APPLY NOW" button on their pages that links to the official application page or something! I really think around August of each year, every department at every school should get all their profs to answer a very short survey. The survey should consist of two questions: (1) Are you planning to take students from the (upcoming year, e.g. 2013-2014) cohort? (2) Describe your research interests in 5 sentences. The first question should be a scale of 1-5 where (1) is not at all likely, and (5) is most likely or something. Then in September, a table with every prof, their answers to these two questions, their departmental email address and a link to their research webpage (by clicking on their name) should appear on the department website. It could be a PDF or on a printer-friendly page. It could even be sorted by their response to Question (1). Profs who don't respond to the survey should also be listed, with no response attached (so that the list is complete). Every year, this list should be updated! Both the schools that I've been to have their department members do this for undergraduate students looking for summer research work. Why not do it for graduate students too? Finally, I was very frustrated to find that almost no departments list their financial support packages. I was hoping to find something like my undergrad institution: http://www.phas.ubc.ca/graduate-program-financial-support . I understand that each student might be funded differently based on the scholarships received, but that link handles that nicely. It lists the most common grad fellowships in the province/country and where your money would come from (i.e. what your TA requirements would be). Even in schools that later told me that every single student is funded the exact same amount didn't put this information on the webpage! This would be very useful because there was at least one school that I turned down simply because the stipend wasn't enough to support us. I don't need to be making a ton of money, but if I have to take a loan/dig into my savings, I'm not going to attend that school, no matter how much of a "fit" they are. This information does not have to be a promise -- they can just list the current stipend amounts and note that they are subject to change from year-to-year, just a guideline/estimate would be enough to save a lot of time for both students and schools!

I am also hopeful that the academic landscape will be different in 5-6 years, but I'm also hopeful that the economy in general will be better so that more non-academic opportunities are available. But I believe that even if these things improve, there will always be more PhDs than jobs that need PhDs. Things might not be as bad as they are now, but they are never going to be good. Maybe I'm just pessimistic! For me, the numbers say that roughly, you have to be in the top 16% of graduates and be willing to relocate anywhere to get a professor-like job. This is going to be pretty hard! When I applied for PhD programs, I only applied to programs that I felt could help me get a professorship job (i.e. both big brand name and good research match). I didn't want to apply to schools just so I could go to school since I'm not going to school just for the sake of going to school. Hope that made sense? I decided to let the application process "weed me out" -- if I didn't make it into a top school, then I wouldn't bother getting a PhD -- time to change career paths! Luckily for me, I managed to get into a good program, so my "dream job" is still a slight possibility. I guess I am still a little idealistic that I'm hoping a PhD will earn me a good job doing something I like. But I'm not idealistic in the sense that I'm entering academia for the sake of research. In some sense, I'm doing it for the money. I'm not doing it to make a ton of money, but the goal of my education is to get a career that will feed my (future) family and allow me to not hate my job. Although I do love my work, it's not the main reason why I am doing this. So, when I was considering grad school offers, I made my decision with equal weighting to quality of life/location as I did for research match. I didn't want to be even more poor (and thus delaying my life further) or be miserable in a city I don't like for 4-6 years for only a "chance" at the dream job. Now that I'm in a PhD program, my next "weeding" step, assuming that I complete my PhD, is the post-doc applications. We (my partner and I) are only going to consider post-docs that both pay well and are in places we want to live. Probably means I have to compete for a fellowship to satisfy both of these criteria. If I can't get any post-docs that we both want, then it's probably a good time to quit academia/research and look for a job with the PhD. If I have to quit during my PhD, at least I have a Canadian MSc that can get me some work, hopefully (but that might be the idealism talking again). I guess what I am saying is that my partner and I know that the "dream job" is a really long shot! So, to minimize risk, we are setting ourselves up to have "outs" along the way. Also, since the whole academia route means not really settling down for potentially 7-10 more years and usually requires a lot of sacrifices, we have decided there are some things we will never compromise on (e.g. a timeline on having children). So, if my pursuit of a PhD and an academic job ends up being no fun/not worth it, or forces us to compromise on our minimums, then I'm ready to quit and follow whatever backup plan makes the most sense. So yes, it's crazy, and our plans are still a little idealistic, but I think having a way out makes us feel better about making the leap! I feel like the "dream job" is such a high goal that I'm happy that I even made it this far, and that I'm ready to leave the dream with no big regrets if it becomes necessary. I think the most idealistic part is our thinking that my current education is still enough to get a decent job. But maybe I'm already too crazy to realise the other crazy and idealistic aspects of our plan!!

The "standard deduction" was 5800 in 2011 but you also get the "personal exemption" of 3700, for a total of $9500 of non-taxable income. The information is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States ; I had looked into this when considering stipends since fellowships are NOT taxable in Canada! (I also learned that the "standard deduction" is only available to American residents-for-taxation-purposes, so not for F-1 or J-1 holders). So, if you are a single American, first you take $9500 off your income. Then you pay 10% of the first $8500 of the remaining income. Then you pay 15% on the portion between $8500 and $35350. If you make more than 35,000 then the portion above that is taxed at a higher rate, but most grad students don't make this much. Wikipedia has a nice example with all the numbers worked out. Just remember that: (1) You don't pay tax on all of your income, only the amount above whatever deductions you have (most Americans will have $9500 as stated above) (2) Taxation is marginal -- there are tax brackets, but if your total income lies in the 8700-35000 bracket (15%), that doesn't mean you pay 15% on all of your income. You only pay 10% for the 10% bracket (0-8700) then 15% for the 15% bracket (8700-35000). This means that you will never have to pay more tax for making more money (i.e. it's not any better to make $8699/year than $8701/year in terms of amount of tax paid). From talking to older students (international and domestic), the advice I got was to roughly put aside 10% of income for taxes. Luckily, as I said above, we will be filing for the 2012 tax year in 2013, where we have only earned our grad stipend income for 3-4 months, which means we won't have to pay much taxes but we can learn how the system works and play around with the numbers (i.e. if using computer software, just increase your stipend to whatever you would have earned for a full year in order to estimate our tax costs for the 2013 tax year).

Taxes are "progressive". If it's 15% for $8700 - $35000 a year, it means you only pay 15% on the portion that is between $8700-$35000 a year. Let's say your stipend is $20,000/year. Then, your federal tax would be: (20,000 - 8700) * 0.15 = $1695 California tax also has some amount of tax exempt income too, so it's not 6% on your whole income. So overall, I guess a quick estimate would be "21% of your income over $8700". But you may qualify for other tax credits as well that could reduce this number. In addition, in your first year, i.e. the 2012 tax year, you will only be earning this stipend for 4 months, so depending on other income earned in 2012, you might not have to pay taxes on the stipend until April 2014 (for the 2013 tax year)!

Hi, I applied to two UC schools last year and was confused by the same thing. I don't remember where I found some of this information (I think some were found on the UC sites somewhere!) 1. The PHS is an essay for you to describe any personal things that the admissions committee should be aware of. I think in particular, it asks you to discuss any hardships you may have felt and overcame (e.g. minority, first generation grad student, health problems, family problems, etc.). The way I saw it (not sure if it's 100% right) was that the SOP is the professional appeal to the school (why you have the right skills, why you are a good fit) while the PHS is the emotional/personal appeal (why your success is meaningful). 2. I think I found this on the UC sites but the PHS should only be as long as you need it to be. So it can be from 1 paragraph to up to 2 pages I think. 3. These are pretty personal but I wrote about why I am motivated to succeed in school (in short: my parents immigrated after a war in their country and started a new life from scratch -- they gave up their own foundations to ensure their children will live in a better place). I found it really really hard to write the PHS without sounding like I'm whining / making my hardships sound really bad / fishing for sympathy etc. 4. I have no idea -- some people have said that schools ask for the PHS just so they can satisfy their requirement to be diversifying their student population. Many other schools don't even ask for it at all. Personally, I think it's only important if you need it to explain some anomalies (e.g. gap in study years) in the rest of your application. But, I got rejected from both UC schools (it's hard to get in as an international student so I don't know if my PHS made a difference). Good luck!

In some departments/programs at Canadian schools, PhD students have an annual "checkup". Sometimes this is a written progress report submitted independently by the supervisor and the student. Often it involves a formal meeting between the student and their committee, where the student's research progress and other factors such as GPA, courses completed, etc. are considered. After the meeting, the committee decides whether or not the student can continue on their next year. Since some programs don't have comps until Year 3, it would be possible for a student to have negative outcomes from their first two "annual checkups" and be asked to withdraw before comps even take place. In addition, some programs will ask a student to withdraw if they fail a course (or two, or any core course etc.). For example, in Physics programs in Canada, we take courses throughout the entire PhD program. So, if after two years, it becomes clear that the student's track record isn't going to allow them to finish in the time limit (i.e. not taking/passing the required core courses), they might be asked to withdraw before they take their comps. In yet another situation, the PhD student can be "fired", if, for example, they are caught doing something they weren't supposed to. Sometimes this results in expulsion too, but other times, it just means a withdrawal of all financial support (hence "fired"), which often is a way of forcing students to withdraw. Your post implies that there is some unfair treatment going on, but like others said, I don't think there isn't enough information for us to say anything that could be helpful? I don't think that every case where a PhD student is asked to withdraw before they do their comps is necessarily unfair.

My recommenders generally want to see my CV. When applying to grad schools, since I am asking for a lot of letters at the same time, I also provided a 1 page summary that listed all the schools, deadlines, faculty I'm interested in at that school. In addition, that page contained a blurb that stated my research goal in 2 sentences and a summary of my GPA and GRE scores. In the past, some recommenders also wanted to see the actual application I am submitting so that they make sure that their letter corresponds with what I'm saying (usually they ask this for fellowships and they mostly want to see the research proposal). I don't submit this by default, but if they want it and I have it ready, then I try to provide it.

In Canada and in some fields (e.g. Physics), schools don't say it and they give a "deadline date" but it's basically rolling admissions. Since it's pretty up to a prof whether or not they want to take you on, then profs will see your applications as they come in and may make offers if they are sure about you. However, in these cases, I think if you are good enough to be admitted before they even see the other candidates, then you would still be good enough to be admitted after Jan 1. The only advantage you'd get is knowing the result earlier, but not every school will do this and you will probably want to hear back from most of your schools anyways before making a decision!

In the past two years, for course materials, I've spent: $300 on textbooks $50 on "supplies" (paper, pens, erasers, etc.) $130 on printing and binding (coil) four copies of my draft thesis for submission to my committee So $480/6 = $80 per semester on this stuff! Not too bad. The rule in most Canadian (and probably US) schools is that course materials are always paid for by the student -- a supervisor can't use his or her grant money to buy textbooks or print my thesis (which is a course) etc. Similarly, dues to scientific or professional organizations are paid by the student too -- I currently pay $57/year for memberships but that will probably increase as now I will want to be members in both Canadian and US versions of my organizations (but I can probably get some joint membership discount). To save money on textbooks, definitely consider ordering from amazon or other online bookstores. Searching around has saved me tons of money. Also, my school library has access to all textbooks by Springer through some database subscription. So, we can download extremely low quality PDFs of some textbooks! You can also ask your instructor to put the book on reserve at the library so that only students in the course can borrow/access the book. Or, you can just keep borrowing the book and renewing your loan. You can also share the costs of a book with your officemates and just get one copy per office. Or, maybe an older student will lend you their copy if they aren't taking a course that needs it this semester. However, this works for courses outside of your field of interest that you have to take. For courses that are directly related to your work, sometimes the textbooks used are super helpful and it could be worth it to get your own copy! (Also, I am reluctant to say this, but you can also consider just not getting some books at all. Sometimes professors assign REALLY bad books and older students can warn you to save your money and don't bother. If a prof assigns two books that have overlapping material, I tend to just buy one. And I never ever buy optional books unless I know those books are important to my field.) For all research (i.e. not course material) related stuff, it's paid for by my supervisor and/or department. My supervisor provided me with a desktop computer at my desk and in recent months, also his old laptop he used for teaching (I use it for presentations, etc.). Most people in the department that want to do work on a laptop usually get one from their supervisor, even if they already have their own personal laptop. For things that overlap both research and coursework (e.g. software licenses), since we need it for research, we consider its use to be primarily research and it's covered by supervisor/department.

I think most schools that have the policy of rejecting their own students for PhD programs do so to discourage their undergrads to go right into a PhD program at the same place. So, if you have done a MS somewhere else, that might be enough "outside experience". An example: when I was visiting one of the schools last spring, people told me about the others who were accepted in my cohort. One of them was an undergrad at the same school but that student was forced to defer admission for one year (to do a 1 year program somewhere else).

I submitted almost all of my applications the day that they were due because December is a very busy time!! Usually when a school says "Dec 15", they really mean 11:59:59PM local time on Dec 15. Programs with rolling admissions or other special circumstances excepted, the admissions committee will likely not even see your application until January. However, it's probably smarter to submit 1-2 days in advance because there might be server overload issues due to procrastinators like me. In addition, Murphy's law will probably make your internet connection crap out or something just before you want to submit! If there are fellowship reasons to apply early, they will usually tell you. Otherwise, most awards are considered internally (i.e. awarded to the best qualified applicants). I think it's a disadvantage to apply, say, more than 1 month early. I found the period before applications to be very stressful and filled with self-doubt! One day I will be super certain about my future plans and I'd be motivated to work on the SOP. Other days, I was feeling "argh why am I applying for ~5 more years of this??" and I won't be able to get anything productive done towards applications. So giving myself more time to work on the applications meant there were more "good days" where I am able to coherently express myself. In addition, if you are waiting for a paper to be submitted, or accepted, etc. then a few more weeks could make a big difference. However, you should definitely START the applications a few months early and let your letter writers know so they are prepared.

1. It might be a matter of style, but I think many people write SOP in chronological order. I treated mine as a story of how I got into the field and why I want to pursue grad school. 2. I haven't heard of that before. For SOP writing, I feel that most people would advise to play it safe and stick to convention. But maybe this could be a good way to capture the reader's interest. However, I wouldn't do that myself since I think the SOP is a formal piece of writing. 3. You can write about your previous experience in multiple areas of research for sure. However, you should try to be more specific about your future plans. You don't have to say exactly what research topic you want to study, so you can talk about several interesting problems all in the same field. But you shouldn't make it sound like you don't have a specific goal in mind and just want to go to school. The idea of the SOP is to demonstrate that you are a good fit for the department, and part of this is describing how/what part of the department will you fit into.

Good point! Probably important in something like Education too I guess. Also, some schools, such as a Military College, might be more interested in this kind of thing. I just have to say that when it comes to stories like this, there's a ton of misinformation on the Internet! When I was trying to figure out whether I qualify for J-1 student status (rather than F-1) and what the differences meant, I found so many different answers. Even admissions officials at the same school gave me different answers! The only sure source of information was contacting the International Student Program offices at the schools I wanted to attend. Government immigration websites were also helpful but I found that their public information is very vague while their legal documents are too dense for a layman to read! So if you have a few Canadian schools in mind, maybe you can check out their International student pages and see what instructions they are providing for international students coming into their program this fall!

You get your Verbal and Qual scores right after the test ends, so you can self-report this on your applications. Your writing score will take about 1 month to arrive, but there's no guarantee score arrival date (as far as I remember) like in the subject GRE tests. I wrote my general GRE months ahead of the deadline (I wanted to take the old GRE, not the new revised GRE) but I wrote my Subject GRE on Nov 12, 2011 while my first application deadline was Dec 1. ETS said the scores will be available by phone on Dec 12 and online by Dec 23. I ordered my score reports for my schools, even those with deadlines of Dec 1 and Dec 15, after Dec 23. Of course, I informed the schools ahead of time that my official scores will be coming in late, but no one seemed to mind. I did pay the extra $$ to get scores by phone so I could at least get unofficial scores for all but one application. I get the impression that most admissions committees don't even sit until January, so things like official transcripts, LORs and official GRE score reports can come after the posted deadline. Obviously you should check to make sure your schools have the same policies! But I would say you should take your GRE no later than ~Nov 1. It might take about 6 weeks for you to get your score report (i.e. writing score) back from ETS, and it would be ideal if you could self-report unofficial scores on your application by Dec 15. At that point, you can then order official reports and they will arrive soon after. After you submit an application, most schools provide you with a way to log into your application to check the status of your supplemental documents (LORs, etc.). I noticed that it only took 2-3 days for most schools to show that they've received by GRE score (I am almost certain ETS submits them electronically). One or two school took weeks but when I checked with them, it was just a matter of them not updating the status page until after school restarted in January -- they received the scores much earlier.

I'm a Canadian. When I applied to Canadian grad schools, no one ever asked about criminal records. It's not even relevant to the grad school application! The only "misdemeanors" that the school might know about is anything that is recorded on your school transcripts. In terms of employment (as a TA or RA), Canadian law requires employers to not consider a candidate's criminal record when considering who to employ (i.e. it's a form of discrimination). So, it also shouldn't matter for both academic and employment roles that a grad student would have. I am fairly certain that a DUI would not prevent a student from getting accepted into a Canadian school. As for crossing the border, I have no experience with that except to say that: a ) I didn't need to submit a criminal record check to study in the US, and b ) I do know that my non-Canadian PhD friends who are applying for Permanent Resident (i.e. "green card") status in Canada through the PhD stream do have to submit criminal record checks though (from the FBI for those who have lived in the US). Hope it helps!

Once you have sent scores to a school, they will have access to them forever. If you really want to select the score to be sent to each school, then you must NOT take advantage of the four free schools (score reports) and pay the ~$25 for each school individually. Note that prior to July 2012 (i.e. everyone who applied to grad school before the Fall 2013 cohort), ScoreSelect isn't an option. So, every school saw every single test score we took. To me, this means that it is no big deal if you got, e.g. 70% percentile and retook it and then got 90% percentile. I got the impression from the application process that the schools will take your best score, especially if there is a big increase. I guess it would be worrisome if you repeatedly scored "low" and the school saw that in all 4 tries, you kept getting a "low" score, but otherwise, I don't think it's a big deal to send all your scores. Especially in this application season, with the first use of ScoreSelect, adcomms will still be used to seeing multiple test scores from applicants, so I don't think it will hurt you too much to send more than one score. If you ask me, this new option is bad for students as it now puts pressure for us to spend more money to send scores and to take the test multiple times to get a higher score (In the past, if you have scored e.g. 80% but thought you were capable of 90%, you might not want to retake it since it's risky and they will see both scores anyways. Now, students will feel more pressure to retake and see if they can get 90%, if not they can always just send the 80% score only. This means more money spent on taking tests and sending score reports!!) As for cost, macro_math, your Subject and General test scores can be sent in one score report (but maybe not if you use ScoreSelect). In the past, when you order a score report, you tick off boxes if you want to send General scores or Subject scores (you can tick off both). I think you can still do this now if you pick the "ALL" option in ScoreSelect. Either way, applying to 10 schools is a reasonable number and it does cost a lot of money