TakeruK

Hi everyone! Just wanted to give our very recent experience of finding an apartment in the US as Canadians with no US credit or rental history! We arrived here in Pasadena a few days ago and we looked at a bunch of places on the first day. We saw something we liked right away and after looking at a few others, we were sure we found the right apartment for us. The landlord said he has had tons of experience renting to foreigners without US history and everything should be okay. Just to be safe, we gave him a ton of information -- letter from school stating my stipend and that I'm accepted, letters that confirm I received a fellowship, even past acceptance letters to prove my current MSc stipend is what I say it is. For my wife, we also included copies of her pay stubs for the last 3 months. The landlord said that new California law says it's not longer legal for landlords to require a minimum income (e.g. 3x the rent) but some shady landlords will find some other way to exclude people on that criteria anyways. Instead, we just have to prove that we are capable of paying rent, so our bank statements showing our savings is good enough. Finally, we also included a copy of a recent credit history report from Equifax, one of two companies in Canada that provide annual free credit history reports. It turns out that Equifax and Transunion both exist in USA too so it's likely they can communicate some information from Canada. Anyways, the end result is that we did get "conditionally" approved for renting the apartment. The only difference between us and a domestic renter is that our security deposit is $300 more. The only upfront costs were $300 holding deposit (applied towards first month's rent) and $60 credit check fee ($30 for each adult). When we move in, we will have to pay the first month's rent and the security deposit. We didn't need a cosigner, nor did we need to pay any additional rent upfront! So, I think it helps for international students if we found an apartment rented by a knowledgeable landlord, e.g. a landlord company that owns many buildings and has a lot of renters. We found on craigslist a lot of places that were owned by a person, or sublets, and they were asking for a lot more requirements, including minimum income! (Minimum income doesn't work for us since my wife won't be able to work right away in the US, we will have to get her J-2 work authorization first!). In addition to experience renting to foreign tenants, a big landlord company is able to absorb losses if a renter defaults (or they have good insurance) so they are also more likely to "take a risk" on a foreign renter!

I think a good guideline is that if you are paying tuition (and thus a student) for the 3 terms/full year, then you apply for the award for 3 terms/full year. You don't actually have to be working in the lab in the summer to get the OGS in the summer.

I also agree with what everyone else says and especially that this short internship sounds like the goal is the experience of being in the lab and working on a paper/poster, not necessarily that the entire thing be completed in 10 weeks. It's probably true that things were started a bit late, but that's the way science/research works. I'm not sure why you want to stop now? Why not just do the best you can with the time you have left and present that. Like Dal PhDer said, it's "only" a university-level symposium. You don't have to be presenting 100% bulletproof data and arguments. Just be honest and let people know the data is preliminary. Even very preliminary data is a more interesting poster than a literature review. In addition, I'd bet that a ton of other students in the internship program that are in similar or very similar situations! Even though you said that the grant is "supposed to be a separate project from the PI's main work", it's more likely that most PIs who took students saw this as "funding for 10 weeks in one of my projects". Of course, the ideal case would be a PI that finds a small segment of their main work that can be separated as a ~10 week project, but things are not always ideal! If you are not personally interested in continuing the work after your internship is over, that's no reason to slow down now. What you do now could help the next person continue the project. You hopefully still gained good experience learning about research, develop some working routines, learn what you like/didn't like, etc.

I think this is very important to consider, because if you change the order yourself, then you're just doing the same thing that your advisor (or someone else) did. And in this kind of fight, the higher rank generally wins. The only hesitation I'd have over, for example, sending an email with the edits to all the co-authors and making a case that you should be first author is that it's going over your supervisor's head. This might be what you want, but it's definitely escalating things, and your supervisor might just fight you even more to "save face" in front of his peers. However, this escalation might be necessary if there is no way your supervisor will listen to you about this. You could also consider bringing up discussing the authorship order with the coauthors in your next meeting with the supervisor? You could also discuss getting to 2nd author instead of first author if you don't want to escalate things too much since you do want to work with your supervisor (and potentially the coauthors?) in the future?

In addition, these are usually "internal" -- that is, you might be automatically considered when you apply to the grad school. If your academic achievements are in the top tier of people they accept, then you may be offered a fellowship along with your admission. Sometimes, the Graduate School gives each department a pot of money to divide up as fellowships among their students as they see fit, and sometimes departments will nominate their best candidates for internal fellowships. In the latter case, sometimes you may be asked to provide additional information so they can do this. In addition, what about national research council scholarships/fellowships? In Canada, we have the NSERC that funds the Natural Sciences and Engineering students, SSHRC for Social Sciences and Humanities, and CIHR for health research. They provide awards at the $22,000/year, $35,000/year and $50,000/year level based on academic achievement, research experience, and potential. In the US, I know that the NSF is the equivalent of NSERC and they have a similar program with similar funding. So, maybe there is a similar fellowship/scholarship program from the US counterpart to SSHRC? We also have a similar granting agency at the provincial level that funds all graduate students, regardless of discipline, from the same pool of money. So another thing to check would be your state's ministry of education (or whatever the equivalent is called).

That's a good point -- I assumed that the deferment policy was given with the admission offer and that deferring is probably okay since it's an unfunded offer. (Almost all of my letters said explicitly that deferring is not allowed).

Most students I know will end up taking a course from their advisor, especially in smaller Canadian universities, like my school, there are only 3 grad courses offered per year in our field. I did it while an undergrad -- I took a grad level course from my BSc thesis advisor. It was hard enough since it was a grad level course but I did feel extra pressure to "perform" and the prof even asked direct questions to me like "hey, TakeruK, this is what you're working on now, tell the class why X is important" etc. It was pretty scary to have to explain stuff to a bunch of grad students who probably knew it better than me! But it really lit a fire under me to study the material well -- even though the grad course didn't count for credit towards my degree, I think I ended up spending more time on it than anything. In the end, it was good for me -- it seems like that type of course is actually rare -- my current university offers it once every 3-5 years (last time was 5 years ago, next time is next year but I'll be gone!). It depends on the type of person you are -- will the extra pressure be helpful? or just stress you out too much? (It wasn't all that bad, the prof was really good at asking you simple questions to tease the answer out of you). And, I think taking a course with your advisor allows you to show them your academic side. Usually they only see your "research side" and other profs only see your "coursework" side. Although it's good to diversify and get to know more profs, it's also helpful to have at least one person who knows both sides of you as well. Finally, if you are swamped with coursework and your advisor wants to meet, you get to say stuff like "well I've been really busy this week because someone gave us a big assignment / an important midterm / etc."

That's a perfectly fine reason If I was in your shoes, I'd feel bad if a whole bunch of profs took the time to talk to me about their research and show me the facilities/labs/department only for me to say "actually I'm deferring..." right afterwards. I personally would tell them that I'd like to defer now but also mention that I would love to visit this summer. Usually, the admin staff are the best people to contact about visiting because they are very good at scheduling time with profs for you! Of course, you shouldn't assume that they will be able to do this, but if you mention that you will be visiting because you will be nearby, then they might be able to make things work out for you

From context, it sounds like it is a visit initiated and paid for by you, so I guess it's not like you let them pay for a visit and then decide to wait a year. But if you visit, they will still have to take the time to show you around. Here's just my personal opinion, no data or anything to back it up. I think if you want to defer, and you want to get on their good side, you should inform them immediately. It's probably not a big deal since you don't have funding from them, so it's not like they need to know whether you are showing up for TA or RA assignments etc. In addition, since you are deferring a year, wouldn't it make more sense to wait until next year to visit? Will you be doing research in your grad program? I would think waiting until next spring to visit and trying to set up a potential project while you're there would be more beneficial since it will be closer to your actual start date!

Although many applications will ask you to fill in a box for your cumulative GPA, I don't think that number is taken very seriously. It may be used to weed out people with, say, < 3.0GPA (or maybe higher at more competitive schools), but from talking with profs after the admissions process, it really seems like they will actually look at your transcript. Some schools will weigh the upper level courses a lot more, and not even care about non major courses. So having all As and better in the last 3 years should make you much more competitive. It also depends on what you mean by "good" grad school. If you have strong research experience, then your profile is good enough, in my opinion, to make it worthwhile to apply to all the top programs that interest you, but like SymmetryOfImperfection says, it's very stochastic. Make sure you apply to a good range of schools so that you don't aim too high or sell yourself short!

I'm paying ~$1600 for UHaul to move a box of my things from Ontario, Canada to California -- with taxes and fees and everything, it will come to around $1800. It's not really "hiring movers" since we have to load and unload the box ourselves, but they take care of the shipping, so we don't have to make that ungodly drive! So....I would probably feel the same way as you do if you are looking at the same price tag for just a 3 hour move! But maybe that price isn't unreasonable for full service movers -- my mother-in-law moved last year in-town with about 1 condo's worth of stuff and it cost her ~$800.

You can also consider a Skype conversation with them! One of my mentors that helped me a lot with the PhD application process was my undergrad advisor but my current school is ~3000 miles away. A Skype call seems a little bit more "human" than a phone call (if you have video on) so that could be a compromise if you can't make the drive!

I don't hold an actual job while a graduate student (in my first year, a scholarship required me to not work more than an average of 10 hours/week). But, I do supplement my income by doing occasional tutoring. I did a lot in undergrad too, but as a graduate student, you can charge more! Just make sure there are no restrictions in your department. In my department, we can get our names posted on the Department Tutor List, which is a webpage that profs could direct students to if they needed extra help beyond what office hours can do. But we aren't supposed to tutor any course that we're currently TAing, for obvious reasons! However, you should also make sure that your funding doesn't come with clauses about outside work. See this thread for a discussion about this: I like tutoring because it's good money -- I charge $30/hour but rates may vary depending on school/subject/location. Most other students tutor too and we keep our rates close to each other so that we aren't undercutting one another. It's also very flexible -- I can tutor more when I have more time and cut back during the busy weeks, take time off for conferences etc. If we have a regular student, we sometimes ask other students to substitute for us that week. It could be pretty hard to do this with a part time job. And I figure even tutoring for just ~3 hours a week is like a whole day working a minimum wage job! And you don't have to pay taxes

Thanks for the update! Sorry it didn't go as well as you hoped. Being a non-confrontational person myself, the same thing probably would have happened to me. But at least you brought it up so he knows you noticed. Maybe he concluded that he can just do this again next time, but it's probably still better than not saying anything. At the very least, if he was 100% not going to change it no matter how hard you fought, then at least this outcome doesn't really damage any working relationships. And now you know this about future work with him.

I'm from Canada and just want to note that in other countries (e.g. Canada), a TAship pays you for the work you do as a TA, not your whole tuition and stipend. For example, about 1/3 of my total funding comes from TA (I get paid an hourly rate and I get a contract that stipulates 54 hours of work per semester), 1/3 from my supervisor in terms of a RAship, and 1/3 in external and internal awards. I have to pay for tuition out of this funding, but the department keeps that in mind to try to give us a decent stipend after we pay tuition. International students pay roughly double the tuition and our department has a limited number of "international tuition awards" so that International students only have to pay out-of-pocket the same amount of tuition as a domestic student. Compared the US system, it's not really that much different except for the fact that our stipend explicitly comes from various sources and we do work specifically for that money. In the US, it seems like students are hired as "Graduate Assistants" and like a faculty member, you work on a salary basis -- you get $X in funding and a tuition waiver no matter how much work you end up doing. My offers from the US usually said something like 20hours/week of TA/RA though, which is a lot more TAing! When I researched UK grad schools last fall, I saw that they have a similar system as Canada, except the "overseas" tuition is much higher (3 or 4 times!). However, some schools offer a limited number of studentships that will cover your fees, but they are limited. For example, the astrophysics group at UCL has this page: http://www.ucl.ac.uk...hd/studentships . Although this isn't for your field, note that the studentship mentioned is college-wide (but you have to be nominated by the Department), so if you are considering UCL, then your department should have some info about this too. I saw similar studentships at other major UK universities too. In addition, I've found that there are some (but very few available to non UK/EU nationals) studentships at the college-level or national-level which pay your tuition and possibly a stipend. Here is a list of those available at UCL: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/scholarships/graduate/overs-res/index (for all graduate students). I would imagine these are super competitive but maybe a bit easier to get than a Fulbright. Just using UCL as an example, the UCL Overseas Research Scholarship pays for international fees/tuition plus a 12,000 pound / year stipend but only 40 are awarded annually for the entire school. Edit: I meant to add that it also seems like you will know your funding situation before you have to accept/decline the school's offer. In fact, for UCL Astrophysics, they will only accept international students who are able to win some external funding (explicitly refusing self-funded students). But you might have to apply for the awards separately (although some awards might require the department to apply on your behalf). By the way, this funding issue is a problem for International students in any country!

As TheFez said, many AdComms won't want to see a portfolio, and some might even forbid sending in any material that isn't required. I'd also like to add that what they want to see is you describing this work in your CV and your SOP. For work that you did for companies, you should be able to summarize what you accomplished in a few lines. You should also discuss it in the SOP but give it a different spin. For me, I put technical details of what I did in a CV and wrote about other skills (communication, etc.) and what I learned from each project in the SOP. As for "awesome ideas", I don't think they will care unless you have something started already. It is very important to be able to describe months and months of work/accomplishments in a few sentences. I think this is how you should show the AdComm your previous work. Actual samples can wait until an interview, or if you really want, put online and include the URL at an appropriate place in the CV (or SOP, but I think CV is better). You should be careful to check the rules for applications -- some schools also forbid linking to URLs or any outside content. Note: You say you are in IT which I am interpreting that you are applying to programs that are like computer engineering, where portfolios are less common, rather than graphic design or other more artistic fields.

1. I am married but I didn't change my name upon marriage (I'm also a male so that's the norm I guess). But I did run into problems with names not matching because having two middle names that are also "anglicized" from a foreign language can cause confusion. Some schools thought my middle name(s) were part of my first name when they read the transcript so sometimes the transcripts did not get properly attached to my application. I usually waited until a week after the transcript should have arrived and then emailed the graduate secretary to check. In one case, because of the name mismatch, the online program continued to say that they have not received my transcript when in fact they did! So, in addition to what you already did, also follow up afterwards! 2. I also had one of my courses officially taken as a Visiting Graduate Student at a different University in the same city for credit towards my MSc school's degree. So my MSc transcript just shows a "credit transferred" while the other school's transcript actually shows the grade. I had to order this extra transcript for every application I made (extra $15 for one course! plus they don't have an online transcript application -- only fax or snail mail ) However, I noticed that some of the schools I applied to said something like "transcripts are only required for schools attended for more than 1 semester" OR "transcripts only required for degree granting programs" -- but they both came with an exception for International students like me, so I had to submit them all anyways. So, check the instructions carefully and confirm with the school if it's not clear. Sometimes schools will accept unofficial transcripts for applications (and only require an official one after you are accepted) so another piece of advice is to order an extra copy for yourself, scan it as a PDF and then upload it to all the schools that don't require an official transcript! This will ensure your document gets attached to your application. For me, 4 out of 8 schools did not need official transcripts on application. Similarly, if you are worried about the different names, and the application allows for you to upload "additional documents", you can also consider attaching unofficial scanned transcripts to these applications even if they also require official transcripts. That way, if your official papers are trapped in red tape at the Graduate School, at least the department/admissions committee can start making some decisions based on your scanned files while they wait for the official stuff to come in. And having a scanned transcript might help them track down the official one too (since they will see your "also known as" name).

It's understandable that the University doesn't want to provide internal funds to someone who doesn't need it (has external funds). But in Canada, schools tend to provide small top-ups (a few thousand) just to stay competitive/attract the good students. However, talking to a prof here in Canada who has worked in the US system, the overheads here are minimal while overheads in the US are very high. That is, if a prof receives $X dollars from a grant (to for example, pay for a grad student's stipend or RAship), the university takes a very large cut of the grant as overhead. So, this is extra costs just because you are there, not even to pay for equipment etc. You should think of the money coming from the school as an award too; an award with strings attached (that is, you can only get this award if your other awards total less than X dollars). Since internal funding costs a lot in overhead, it makes sense to prioritize students who need this money more. That is, the guaranteed funding means that you are guaranteed to be receiving $X dollars in funding, but not necessarily from the school's internal funds! My new school says that they won't top off awards because they have a policy that every student should make the same amount, to discourage competition amongst ourselves. It's probably part "fluff" to make us feel better about not getting a top-up but I sort of agree with this sentiment. Every school I received an offer from also stipulated that I must disclose any other external awards and that my internal fellowship offer may change because of external awards. That is, the internal funds will be no longer available so you don't really have the option of "taking" that. I suppose if you REALLY want to stick it to the University, you can choose to decline your external awards and you'll get your minimum guaranteed funding in internal funds. This is probably a really bad idea, as it's not the best way to make a first impression. In addition, there are a ton of fringe benefits of having external funding: a) You probably do cost your advisor less. Money saved for your advisor means potentially more money put aside to spend on you. You still get the prestige of the award on your CV (although you can still get this if you decline the award, I suppose) c) You might not need to be paid a RAship from your advisor. This probably translates to more research/academic freedom. You also don't have to worry about finding an advisor that has funding for a student -- you can pretty much work with anyone and you don't have to compete with other students who want to work with an advisor that has limited funds. d) You might also have more freedom to choose your topics if your advisor isn't paying you directly (as much). e) You might have lower TA requirements (TAing is good I think but too much of it can be distracting) So, I think everyone in my field would still be motivated to apply for external awards. My current school in Canada do provide top-ups but your internal funds is still reduced. However, everyone is only eligible for internal monies if they have applied to external awards. Internal funding being reduced due to external awards is the norm at many schools. Personally, I still think it would be nice for a school to provide even a small top-up, just as a symbolic, tangible gesture of saying "thanks for bringing in that extra money". But as long as I receive a stipend enough to live comfortably then I won't really complain!

I think we are saying the same thing here A 70 in a North American school grading system is a 3.0 GPA and yes, borderline failing. In North America, we issue grades so that 90%+ is an "excellent" score, but in other countries, "excellent" performance can be a different number. In some places, grades over 90% are extremely rare. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_grading_in_India So that's why I asked the OP how grades worked in their country. The profile information says they are from Nepal but I'm not sure where they actually went to school. Also, Wikipedia only has this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_grading_in_Nepal

In my experience, IRdreams, assuming that both your fellowships allow you to keep both fellowships (weird sentence!), then what probably happens is that you can probably choose: a ) Keep both external fellowship and take NO money from the school. This includes money that you don't even see, for example, a tuition waiver. or b ) Your stipend will be the max -- $38,689 and you keep any other additional University money like tuition waivers. If both your fellowships total something like $50,000, then your tuition waiver will probably be deducted by $11,311. That is, the excess of your fellowship will end up saving your school money. Of course, there's no guarantee that your school will behave the same way. But this is consistent with many students I have talked to at many different universities, and also with some similar experiences myself (I've never won two giant fellowships at once though, congrats!). Almost everyone I know chooses B but I do know of one person that chose A because their fellowship covered tuition and stipend! I originally thought it was unfair that extra money you earn from fellowship can be "taken away" but my school explained the actual cost of having graduate students is MUCH higher than our stipend + tuition cost. Other profs have confirmed that overhead charges are very high. My immigration documents show that it will cost my school over $100k/year to support me and my stipend is a small fraction of that. I ended up with a $20k/yr external fellowship, which is a large fraction of my stipend, so I thought the school should provide a top-up. But this turns out to be a small fraction of the total cost to support me.

The OP was asking about MS programs, not PhD programs. But even so, there are some programs that will accept students without the PGRE. I just googled and found this as the first hit: http://www.physics.umn.edu/grad/physics/faq.html But I have no idea how this program ranks! But since the OP is looking for "good" or "medium" ranked universities, it might be really hard to find one that will take you without a PGRE. In addition, it's even harder to find one that will take international students without a PGRE -- some schools like to see a GRE score because they are not familiar with foreign curriculum and grading systems. Speaking of which, it would be hard for anyone to speak about your chances with only your grades and test scores. Firstly, how do your grades translate to an North American score system? I've heard that some countries grade much tougher, so scores in the 70s are pretty good. In Canada, scores in the 70s are usually not good enough for graduate school -- Canadian physics departments would expect applicants to have around 80% average (A-). In addition, graduate programs usually have a minimum passing grade of 65%-67% (or sometimes even 72%), so a 70% average in your MSc would be flag without further context. Secondly, other factors like your letters of reference and research experience would be really important. Thirdly, your General GRE scores are excellent, I don't think you have to worry about that. And finally, sorry I can't say anything about your TOEFL -- but most programs list their minimums (and you only need to meet the minimum, a higher score won't help you!).

Right -- I meant to qualify my statement about the "right" to take courses with what I wrote in the preceding paragraph about getting approval from advisor/committee. That is, if these courses can fit into the PhD course requirements somehow, then the student has the "right" to take them.

While the decisions to drop out isn't one to be taken lightly (it sounds like you are sure about your decision though), and your advisor (and department and school) has invested a lot of effort and money in you, you shouldn't feel guilty about it because it's part of the risk that schools/departments/profs take when committing to a graduate student. We take a similar risk when committing years of our lives and sometimes personal funds/loans to a graduate school (i.e. that our advisor/school/project will be as advertised)! I would also add that many people will view voluntary withdrawals from PhD programs sometimes as a failure on part of the school because something happened to turn you off research/PhD/academia. So, while some people will see your decision as "weak"/giving up, not everyone will. You have to prioritize your own goals/desires. For the question about the courses -- it sounds like these are courses you wouldn't normally take as part of your PhD, so it might raise a flag with your committee/department that you want to take these 5 undergrad courses for seemingly no reason. If these are courses that you would take anyways if you weren't withdrawing then I don't see any additional problem from delaying your withdrawal until after you've taken these courses. Personally, I don't think there exists a universal (i.e. objective) set of morals/ethics that are "good" or "right". There are actions/decisions and they come with consequences. Some people may think that by learning that technique that is supposed to be brought back to the lab when you know that you are 100% leaving would be a case of you "using" the advisor/lab to get what you want and then leaving. The same could be said for the undergrad courses, taken for free as a grad student. On the other hand, you are well within your rights to take these actions. Until you actually withdraw, you are entitled to all training provided for lab members and you are paying some set tuition rate to the school so you have the right to take the courses. But that's something only you can decide for yourself! We also don't have access to the full information of your situation. If I was in your shoes, I really don't know what I'd do; it sounds like a tough choice. If the school/department has not treated me well and basically acted to the very limits of their rights then I'd be more inclined to do the same and delay my withdrawal as long as possible so I can get as much out of school as possible and not feel bad about it. Ethics aside, there are also some practical concerns. If your advisor/school/department finds out or suspect that you only stayed on for awhile longer to get that extra training or courses, it could hurt you in the future. You might end up burning bridges at your current program. It might not matter. But you might need references -- not sure what vet school requires! Good luck!

My wife and I are Canadians with no US credit history and trying to find an apartment in California for Sept 2012! So far, we've submitted one application but unfortunately, someone else beat us to it so they just kept our stuff on file. The landlord seems to be knowledgeable in working with International people and so far, it doesn't seem to be a problem but they haven't actually processed an application yet. We will be flying down at the end of the month to try to find something and I can hopefully give an update by then. We were also worried about paying for deposits etc. without a US bank account. We asked a potential landlord and our own bank (where we have a US-dollar bank account at a Canadian bank) and they said the best thing to do is to get money orders from your own bank before you leave. For example, get several ~1000 USD money orders, which only take a few days to process, and use that to pay for first months' rent and deposit. It could be helpful to have some of these on hand, if possible, because it shows you will be good for the first few months' of rent. If you are transferring some of your savings to the US, the bank recommends doing a bank draft, but these take up to 30 days to clear in the US, so it is not always ideal for upfront expenses. Both money orders and bank drafts are guaranteed funds (unlike a personal cheque) but they are safer than carrying around large amounts of cash! We also considered university-owned off-campus housing but the wait list for that is too long, it doesn't look like we will be able to get a place. However, we didn't read anything about state tax exemption in California, even for on-campus graduate student residence, so this might be something that varies between states.

My experience is similar to ktel's -- for "uninvited visits/open houses" (that is, a visit that was initiated by me), I emailed the graduate coordinator (a prof) and/or an administrative staff member responsible for graduate admissions saying that I would be in town for these dates, that I would be interested in applying to their school and what my fields of interests are. Sometimes they would then ask me for some names and then everything else is set up by the department -- a complete schedule of activities and meetings. It would make way more sense for the department staff to handle the logistics of setting up meetings instead of you having to email each individual prof and try to make the schedules all work out. For the schools I visited in this way (2 years ago, Canadian programs), I did this during my February reading break which was after I've already submitted my applications (due dates are Jan-March) but, with the exception of 1 school, before any decisions were actually made. So I guess I had the advantage of visiting close to their normal Open House dates and during admissions season, instead of the summer. As Sigaba said, from my interactions with faculty I know, summer does seem to be considered "their time" (i.e. they don't have to teach, sit on committees, etc. -- they can finally focus on their research and conference travel). So, when people ask me when to talk to profs about admissions, I usually advise them to wait until the fall / closer to application season. But I guess in your case, that might not be possible. I also added a sentence in my original email asking if there was any funding available to support my visit, in an non-presumptuous way, and mentioned that I was actually combining 3 schools into one visit so the expenses would be pretty low. In the end, the trip was completely covered and they even paid for accommodations for the days where I wasn't visiting the school but just exploring the city. So, contacting the department for them to set things up turned out for the best! But it might also be better to save this question after the department has responded positively and invited you to visit.