TakeruK

Hi! I'm also from Canada and have the same question. In my letters of offer, they explicitly say that if we get a tuition waiver, it is NOT taxable, but any other stipend (fellowship, scholarship, TA, RA money etc.) would be taxable. In Canada we didn't have to worry about this! Also, tuition waivers are only non-taxable if they are applied directly to tuition -- if you got an award that is paid out in cash/cheque which you could then use to pay tuition, then it's still taxable. So, I tried to look up some IRS documents and I've only found a few things: 1. F-1 or J-1 status doesn't matter -- everywhere I look, the two terms are used together (e.g. "Section X applies to people with non immigrant F, J, M ... etc. visas" 2. We will most likely be classified as a "non-resident alien" for tax purposes (http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=96352,00.html). This means we only pay tax on US-based income, so we won't have to pay US tax on Canadian income. I haven't checked to see if, as residents of Canada, we would still be paying taxes on US income. I think we will have to file taxes with both Canada and US though? 3. The personal tax exemption in the US is really small -- only something like $3700/year (instead of ~$9000/year here in Canada). But I think their taxes are lower too. I can't find any source that tells me how the tax brackets work though. 4. Overall, Canadian friends who are now in the US for school told me that the tax is relatively small and we don't have to worry about it too much. However, my wife will be moving with me and getting health insurance for her would be really high due to non-student status so funding will be pretty tight for the first year so I am a bit worried about this too! If you or anyone else know more, please add to this

Thanks broquemo. I guess I really meant an apartment building owned by a person or a company, instead of a big house partitioned into apartments. $1000 a month would be really great, compared to what we have been finding (from companies and otherwise). But maybe rent has gone up in recent years too, the average that we see for a 1 bedroom is ~$1100-$1200. I will be visiting next week for my program's Open House so I'll be sure to look around at the different areas so when we look at listings in the summer, we have a better idea of where things are! Thanks again

I'm in a similar situation -- my wife and I were worried that she wouldn't be able to work in the US until we found out about the J1 visa a few months ago. This is what I know from talking to International Student Offices and other F-1 and J-1 students. 1. One school told me that they can't actually tell me what kind of visa I'd get because each case is different and they don't get the details until I accept the school's offer. However, they said that the basic requirement is that the majority of the funds used to support the J-1 (me) and the J-2 (spouse) should NOT come from personal or family funds. They also said that they are authorized to issue the DS-2019 which I use to apply to US Immigration for a J-1 visa. So, it's up to US Immigration, not the school, what visa we get. 2. It's not clear ANYWHERE how much funding can come out of personal funds. Is 50% fellowship supported enough? Or do we need, say 75% level. What about tuition waivers, do they count as non-personal fund support? And does income from TA/RAships count as University support, or personal income? 3. I'm also Canadian so I applied to NSERC...would a PGS D be enough for J-1 status? By the way, I also applied to the Fulbright Traditional Student Award (15,000 USD for 9 months, non renewable), and part of that award is a J-1 visa. I checked with the Fulbright people, although the grant is only for 9 months, I will be able to keep J-1 status for the whole degree. NSERC PGS D is more funding than Fulbright, so maybe it will be enough too! (Assuming I even get either award) 4. I know several people who are on F-1 visas because they were unable to get a J-1 visa. Their spouses (F-2) are thus not able to work. I know some schools have "International Spouses Clubs" to support these spouses. I am not sure why these F-1 visa holders did not end up getting J-1 visas though. So after that, it seemed pretty dismal! But a prof at my school had a student go through the same process a few years ago and he got a J-1 visa! He gave me more details: 5. University support due to TA and RA ships are indeed enough for J-1 status (he was funded by a TAship and a tuition waiver). Fellowships are even better! J-1 and J-2 visa must be covered under health insurance. Universities will generally assume you want a F-1 visa so he says to be sure to tell them you want a J-1 visa right away so there is no lost time. 6. He also says that if you do your first post doc in the US and it starts within 30 days of the end of your J-1 visa, you are eligible for an additional 3 year extension on J-1 status for post doc training. He recently graduated and is currently doing this now. 7. J-2 work isn't as simple though. This is what he wrote to me: "You'll need to write a letter explaining your situation and setting out your budget. The idea is that the J-2 is not allowed to support the J-1 financially, *at all*. All of your spouse's income is supposed to go to "cultural and recreational activities"." His wife got work authorization in 2009, he says. Based on my experience asking people in departments that have accepted me: 8. Most people don't really know the visa process! Some will tell you that a J-1 visa is for "visitors or exchange students" only, because that's the name of the J-1 visa. But this is not true! Usually post-docs get J-1s and students get F-1s so that might be another source of confusion. But I still encourage you to ask the people at schools that accepted you, mostly to let them know that this is a concern for you. They are all usually glad to help and will set you up to talk to other students in the department who have done the same, or a staff member responsible for these matters, or get you in touch with someone from the University who knows what to do! And here's a link to an official page: http://j1visa.state....ersity-student/ (but has lots of vague information!) 9. When I try to find the skills list that require home residency, all I found was this: http://travel.state....types_4514.html (2009). In this list, Canada is not listed, which means we don't have to go back. I don't know if there is an update since 2009 though. I didn't look too much further into it because I plan to go back anyways. Finally, about whether or not being married is required: 10. I found this definition: from http://travel.state....ssary_1363.html . It's vague, yet again. In Canada, common-law couples get all the same benefits as married couples so it is probably okay, but you should really check this! Again, I didn't look into this too much further since it didn't apply to me. I hope all this was helpful, it's basically the results of the last 3-4 months of worried research! Some days, it felt like everything was going to work out and others it felt hopeless. But I am now optimistic about it all. Good luck!!

Glad to help! Unfortunately you can drive for a day from most places in Ontario and still end up in Ontario (provided that you don't head towards the US!). My wife and I drove from Vancouver to eastern Ontario when we moved here. It took 4 days of driving for ~8 hours to get to Manitoba (4 provinces: BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba). We thought "yay, almost there!" But when we checked our driving schedule, it was actually another ~20 hours of driving before we actually made it to Toronto (and then we did a detour to Niagara Falls before arriving at our destination). Due to the shape, I think the distance from the western-most point of Ontario the eastern-most point is about the same as the distance across the four western provinces mentioned above! Google map says this is ~2400km = 31 hours if you drive along Ontario's southern shore (the slow scenic route that we took since we wanted to "drive across (most of) Canada"). If you want more info on what kind of fees/deposits are allowed (not many), see an unofficial FAQ here: http://www.ontariotenants.ca/law/law.phtml. The amount that your rent may increase each year is also limited by law (scaled according to inflation) Last year it was 0.6% but it was generally around 2-3% in previous years. I can only give recommendation on touristy/museumy things since that's what I enjoy! Toronto is Ontario's capital so there are plenty of things like the Royal Ontario Museum, and the Art Gallery of Ontario if you are into that stuff. It could also be worth seeing the CN Tower. Ottawa has most of the national museums (being the captial and all) and in the summer, you can see a Changing of the Guard style ceremony at the Parliament. Just outside of Ottawa is also the "Diefenbunker", a Cold War era bunker built to protect our Government in case of a Soviet missile attack. It's pretty eerie, especially when the guide mentions things such as the blast doors were built to withstand both a missile as well as ordinary (radioactive) citizens trying to get in unauthorized! For getting around between cities, other than driving, there is the train (VIA Rail) and the major bus companies are Greyhound, Coach Canada, and Megabus. VIA Rail is a bit nicer and more comfortable than the buses but generally the prices can be 2-3 times more and they are not 2-3 times nicer! Greyhound and Coach Canada are the big bus companies but they run different routes so sometimes their trip planner will give you a very roundabout trip! However, Megabus is probably the cheapest/best one. It's a discount bus company run by Coach Canada and you only buy tickets online. They started in the UK, then expanded to US before coming to Canada so you might already know about it. I was pretty happy to be able to snag a $1 bus fare to Toronto one time (normally I pay ~$15 with them, ~$30 with Coach Canada and ~$60+ for the train). Of course, driving is much more flexible, but if you want to fly somewhere, you pretty much have to get to Toronto International Airport and flying there from a local airport is usually crazy expensive.

I think it might be worth it to point out that due to North Americans not used to using the term "course" to mean discipline/major/department, the first few replies *may* have understood that you were applying to the same department at two different universities but X has coursework/classes that are not as good a fit as Y, but not as different as you later explain it to be! I think that X may still be a better fit, but maybe not greatly better than Y as it would originally seem. If your supervisor is the only person in the department in your field of interest, there could be other issues, such as colloquia/invited speakers/seminars all focusing on aspects of English that are pretty much useless to your work. This could be frustrating if you were required to attend these as well as courses that are not related to your work! However, if the school where course X is offered also has departments which offer seminars or colloquia in your field then you might be able to attend these instead. Also, departments sometimes ask their students for suggestions on who you'd want to invite to speak to your department, so make sure your voice is heard! Just another thing to consider. As for teaching, I think most Canadian universities have some resource centre for teaching and you can generally get free support from them in addition to whatever your department offers. I actually remember a lot of my humanities TAs/instructors pretty much learning the material as the same time as us. With so much variety in things covered, it's unlikely that our TA would have read the specific novel, essay, poem or anthology assigned so they were usually only one or two readings ahead of the class.

Also here to agree with others that all students in Canada pretty much pay tuition. Some schools may quote your financial package after subtracting out tuition though. McGill has a reputation of lower funding/stipend levels than other schools, but the cost of living in Montreal is also lower than other big cities. Like someone said above, you should really think about this as $13k/yr stipend for years 1-2 and then $25/yr for years 3-4, or an average of $19k/year. $19k/year isn't a huge amount but I think that is about standard for a Canadian grad student without an external award. For comparison: my minimum University funding is $18k/year and our tuition (for domestics!) is $7k/year. Fortunately the minimum funding for my program is at least $24k/year so after tuition, we still take home about $17k/year. In general, you aren't really penalised as an international student because Canadian universities usually increase the stipend for internationals so that their take-home income is the same as a domestic student. Overall, I'd say you have a decent funding package considering the cost of living in Montreal and that you don't have any external awards. That is, you are not getting tricked into a bad deal, as far as I can tell. You just have to decide whether living on $19k/year is worth pursuing that degree!

I was born in Ontario, but grew up in British Columbia (yay west coast!) But I am currently back in Ontario for grad school. Sorry, I won't be able to help you here, but maybe the school's international student office could. I'm in a similar situation since I am probably going to go to the US for a PhD program and my wife (who isn't a student but is Canadian) will be going with me. We've done a lot of research to figure out how she will be able to come into the US and work as well. Looks like we're going to need J-1 status. Anyways, I now realise I know more about US visas than Canadian ones! The major banks in Canada (and Ontario) are: TD Canada Trust, BMO (Bank of Montreal), CIBC, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), and HSBC (Hong Kong-Shanghai Bank of Canada). These banks have branches and ATMs pretty much all over the country. It would be worthwhile to check out the city you're moving to and make sure though. I've never banked with CIBC and HSBC before. I would avoid President's Choice though, since they don't really have any offices, and my friend who uses them complains to me that although CIBC branches are supposed to serve PC customers, they don't really like doing so. I found that RBC has pretty high fees so I closed my account with them a long time ago (they might be more competitive now though). My favourite is BMO because they have great student account options. They offer a Mastercard with SPC (Student Price Card, gets you discounts at many places including the department store Zellers [kinda like Target]) and the ability to collect Air Miles, for free! You can also choose to get 0.5% cash back instead of Air Miles too. However, the BEST thing, in my opinion, about BMO is their "banking plan" paradigm. You pay for ONE banking plan that serves all your accounts. The fees are waived if you meet some minimum deposit in your "main account". This is great for my wife and I since we just need to keep a minimum deposit in one joint account and all our personal and joint account have the same benefits. The minimums are a bit higher than TD (where I also hold an account) but cheaper overall because you would have to keep a minimum in ALL your accounts at TD to get the same benefits. For comparison, the best plan at BMO is $5000 minimum total while the best plan at TD is $3000 minimum per account for ALL accounts. Popular websites in Ontario/Canada are kijiji (www.kijiji.ca) and Craigslist. When I moved to Ontario, another student recommended rental from the landlord company Homestead (http://www.homestead.ca/). They have properties all over Ontario and they are a large and reputable landlord. Most of their places are pretty good but they do have some dumps too. However, when looking at apartments, they had a very low rate of dumps compared to other places we looked at. You can also apply for places online, which is nice! Some useful things you might want to know about the Ontario Tenant Act: (1) Landlords cannot ask for any type of deposit, other than "Last month's rent" (LMR). So no damage deposit, no security deposit, none of that. You also get interest earned on the LMR each year. (2) Landlords are not allowed to have a "no pets policy". Any "no pets" policy you sign is considered voided by the Tenant Act. Pets can only be removed if they are disturbing other tenants. Of course, it's better to not get in a fight about this and if pets are important to you, it's probably best to avoid places with these policies. (3) Generally leases are signed for 1 year and then they are on a month-to-month basis. Tenants give their landlords minimum 2 MONTHS notice before vacating, so if you want a place for, say, Sept 1, you should be applying for places on July 1. Of course, it may also be possible to find a place when you arrive! Finally, depending on the city, if you are moving to a place with a high student population, I'd really recommend checking it out in person before signing for it, because sometimes landlords take advantage of the lower standards of students. It might not be possible due to your current location, but if you could visit the city 2 months before you plan to move and actually pick out a place, it would be even better! Or maybe ask someone you may know (or get to know) in the city to check for you. The big three cell companies are Rogers, Bell, and Telus. They have smaller, cheaper "child companies": Fido, Solo, and Koodo, respectively. The big companies generally have large, expensive plans ($50+ per month) and lots of smart phones. The child companies have cheaper plans for just talk and text. Fido has a family plan where two people can share one phone account. I currently use a $25 Solo plan with 100 minutes on weekdays (but they have upgraded this to unlimited), unlimited texting in Canada, and I pay an extra $10/month for call display and voicemail. I signed on a two year contract and got my phone for free. Another big company is Virgin Mobile. In addition, there are some newer and very cheap companies such as Moblicity and WIND mobile (with service the level of the big 3 and prices of their child companies!). Unfortunately, they are new so their network coverage is smaller and may not even serve your city! But do check it out. Ontario Harmonized Sales Tax is 13%. The basic utilities are heat, water, and hydro (electricity) so if it's not included then expect to pay more for this. My rent includes the first two so I don't know how much they cost but our electricity bill is about $30/month. I say this because when looking at places in the US, I notice that they have trash listed sometimes too. This is taken care of by the city in most places here. I'm not sure what else you mean about finding necessary things (so ask more if you'd like!) but here are some things that may help you "fit in" more, maybe! Politics: The current Prime Minister is Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC; which many may describe as a centre-right party). The current opposition is the New Democratic Party (NDP), which is a leftist party. The former opposition (they lost a huge number of seats in the last election to the NDP and CPC) was the Liberal Party of Canada, which could be described as a centre-left party. The CPC has been in power since 2006 (with a minority government) and has had a majority government since 2011. Before that, the Liberals were in power from 1993-2006. The NDP has never been in power (in fact this government has a record number of NDP seats). So now you've got a primer in case people around you start talking about our government! Money: We have $1 and $2 coins, nicknamed the "loonie" and "twoonie" (also "toonie") respectively. Our bills are coloured and come in $5 (blue), $10 (purple), $20 (green), $50 (red), and $100 (brown) denominations usually. More fun things: One thing that almost all Canadians love is the coffee and donut chain, Tim Hortons. Some parts of the US have them now so maybe you already know this! But to help you get talking with the locals, here are some useful food related vocabulary (not all Tim Hortons related): Timbits = donut holes from Tim Hortons Double-double = a coffee with 2 creams and 2 sugar (you can also order a tea double-double though) from Tim Hortons Timmies, Tim's, Timmy Ho's = Tim Hortons Poutine = delicious french fries with cheese curds (you know these are real if they squeak when you bite into them), covered in gravy Smarties = Candied covered chocolates (like M&Ms) -- Smarties in the US are called "Rockets" in Canada Beaver Tails = fried flat piece of dough, sprinkled with cinnamon and brown sugar usually; similar to "Elephant ears" or churros. Very popular in Ottawa. Homo Milk = homogenized whole milk, equivalent to 3.25% fat milk. (probably lots more but these come to mind first!) And finally, the Ontario NHL hockey teams are the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Ottawa Senators. Be warned that pretty much everyone who isn't from Toronto will hate the Maple Leafs though. I'd recommend the Vancouver Canucks Feel free to ask any other questions

I know a lot of students who did the first two years of their BS degree at a local college (i.e. associate degrees) and then transferred to a University to complete their degree. Most people will end up doing 3 years at the University -- sometimes the college does not offer all the required lower level courses, especially if you want an honours BS. Some of these students are currently in grad school now. However, this would decrease the student's chances of getting research positions, as they seem to favour those who started in University in the first place. So it would be a good idea to apply for co-op work programs if available (and if research work is part of the co-op work). With all that said though, I don't think a Physics BS is guaranteed to get you a good job. I'm not convinced that a Physics BS is any less "useless" than associates in liberal arts and music, other than the fact that a Bachelor's represents more work than an associate's (but 2 associates = same time as a BS). I think all BS degrees are pretty much equally valued: people hire BS graduates because they have scientific reasoning, data analysis and critical thinking ability, not because of their major. BA graduates are valued for the ability to conduct research, critical thinking, and communicate effectively. So, a Bachelor's degree in anything is, more or less, equal value in the work force I think. I'd encourage your friend to definitely think about whether or not it's actually worth it to pursue a BS though. If it's simply for better career options, I'd personally advise your friend to give this a lot of thought. He/she may end up much further ahead in life if they work for the next 4-5 years and gained valuable work experience instead of debt. A Physics BS may put your friend in the same situation as he/she is in now, but with additional debt and yet another 4-5 years of work experience behind their peers/competitors. But if your friend has thought about this and realised that Physics/science is truly the only career he/she wants to do because he/she will be unhappy otherwise, then go for it. So I don't want to discourage anyone from studying science/Physics but I just want to present some realities. Of course, your friend may have much different goals so I can't really say what's best for them. Personally, if I had already spent ~4 years in University/college, I would not want to go back and start all over again. There are other priorities in life, for me, so I don't want to devote all my energy/youth into school/career. What about finishing off the liberal arts associate's degree to get a full BA? Then some career options may also open up. I guess it also wouldn't be too much of a risk to start a physics program at a local college to see how your friend feels about Physics -- but keep in mind that upper level physics, and especially graduate level physics is very different from lower level physics courses. This is especially true because many first year physics courses are taught to fulfill the physics/science requirements of other majors, not taught in a way intended for physics majors! So if there is an option between taking a physics course for physics majors, go for it. If your friend will take a calculus course first, then go for the calculus-based physics course if possible.

Too late to help the OP, but maybe this info can help others. Caltech GPS (Geological and Planetary Sciences) only lists the PGRE as "strongly recommended" I have a relatively low PGRE score for an international student trying to get into a US school (PGRE: 690/53rd%). Arizona, Caltech, and Cornell have accepted me thus far for Fall 2012. Cornell has a Astronomy and Space Sciences program so while they are still an astro department, there are many strong people/research going on in planetary science, especially planets and mechanics. So I think the above schools are examples of places that would weigh the PGRE scores less and probably give more weight to research and GPA.

I am wondering if anyone who lives / had lived in the area could recommend some apartment landlord companies for my wife and I? We would prefer to rent from a company (preferably one that owns several buildings) rather than an individual. Most of the ones we find via Google are really fancy "apartment homes" with rent > $2000/month!! The only one I've found so far is "Babera Managment Inc." Also, how do students get to Caltech if they don't have a car? Is there a good bus route? Or does everyone walk? Thanks!