TakeruK

I'm of the opinion that you should not send anything that is not actually required. It would be so weird for a biology department to receive Physics GRE scores when they never asked for them, for example. 74th percentile is a good score. If you are applying to programs that aren't pure physics and say the PGRE is "optional", it's worth sending if it doesn't cost you more. For example, I am thinking of biophysics, astrophysics, geophysics, planetary science programs etc. For my PhD school, I sent in 40th and 50th percentile PGRE scores and I got in (it was a planetary science program). However, I also got into some astrophysics programs that are based in physics departments too. So, if you are actually interested in physics PhD programs, don't think that a 74th percentile means you can't get in anywhere. Unless a school told you that you are below their cutoff, if there is a good match, you should apply.

It depends on whether this school appears to value Q/V more or AW. If you are not sure, then sending both probably won't hurt. It shows your 5.0 in AW and an improvement in Q/V over time. I also don't think it will be that big of a deal if you only sent 2017. If the Physics score is not required and not relevant to this program, don't send it, even if it's free. The biggest exception I can think of is: 1) you did well on the PGRE and 2) the computational neurosciences program is (for some reason) housed in the physics or applied physics department where Physics profs will also evaluate your application. But this doesn't seem to be the case here.

I hit "send" too soon and had to edit the response to add another line, sorry for any confusion!

I did list my thesis work when applying to grad schools. In my field, it doesn't matter if it is related to what you are applying to for grad school. First, because the grad schools care about the fact that we have had research experience, and less about specifically what we did (after all, whatever we do in PhD programs will overshadow earlier work anyways). Second, my field is a multidisciplinary one, where we have people going into Planetary Science from Astronomy, Physics, Math, Geology, Biology, or Chemistry. So, my education section looked something like this when I applied: 2010-present: MSc, University of Awesome Thesis advisor: Prof. Awesome, Title: Awesome studies of Awesome stuff 2005-2010: BSc, University of Spicy Foods Thesis advisor: Prof. Chili, Title: Chemical reactions of spicy peppers -including co-op program with 16 months of full-time research For grad school applications, I included my participation in my school's co-op work experience program (turns a 4 year degree into 5 years: 4 years of courses + 1 year of research work plus summers doing research). I put it there because it shows up as a notation on my degree but also to explain the extra year (and to emphasize research experience). So I think having something like that along with your school info is fine. If you list your study abroad, I don't think it's necessary to put it as a course number. You can just say "including Study Abroad semester at Foreign University". Technically the four semesters of co-op were course numbers too but I didn't include them.

During my Masters, I was in Ontario where there is a province-wide "Visiting Graduate Student" program, that allows grad students at one Ontario school to take grad courses at another Ontario school as long as both host and home institutions/departments sign off on it. This resulted in me having transcripts from an extra school (the home institution transcript just says "credit granted", need to submit the host institution transcript for the results). So there were two good options for the CV: either list it as a separate entry in Education and put "Visiting Graduate Student" where I would put the degree type, or have it appear as a bullet point under my Masters school entry. So I suppose you could do the same with your study abroad status to make sure it's very clear that it's not a degree program. Note: After a few years in grad school, I removed all mention of this status completely though.

I finally have a family doctor / GP for the first time in 7 years! Just made my first appointment today.

Not in your field, but I think some of this is general advice. 1. Schools know that you can only apply to four places with the CGS-M. So, unless they have no tact, they are not going to ask, "why didn't you pick us?" when you tell them you are not applying to their CGS-M program. At the same time, schools will still ask because it's a good way for them to assess how interested you are in their program. The implication is that if you get a CGS-M, it would be really strange to turn it down to go to their school. So, ultimately, you have to make a choice and you have to stick with it / be honest about it. I think it would be much worse for you to not put School X on your list of 4 schools but tell School X that they are your top choice than something more honest like (paraphrased): I am very interested in your program but I could only apply to four places with the CGS-M. By picking, you are signalling how much you are interested in their program, so do choose your four schools carefully and with purpose! 2. This is more tricky. It's very very easy to switch CGS-M research programs. I applied to the CGS-M back when you just applied to the national competition and could pick the school after the fact. I ended up not even applying to the school where I wrote my CGS-M proposal for and did a completely different topic. Like, a totally different subfield within Physics & Astronomy. I think as long as you are staying within however your discipline divides up its awards committees, it does not matter. You bring up another good point though: would mismatch between research proposal and the school's facilities play a role? This might depend a lot on how the schools in question evaluate their CGS-M applications. This has changed since my CGS-M application. However, on the award solicitation page (http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Students-Etudiants/PG-CS/CGSM-BESCM_eng.asp) you will see that this should not and is not a criteria for the award evaluation. I think the CGS-M committee is a University-wide committee, which means the judges are not going to have intimate knowledge of your field or your department. That said, there may or may not be a departmental stage in the "new" CGS-M selection process? I would think the main exception would be if you are proposing some research project that is just not feasible at the school you are applying to, for some reason. You see that most of the criteria on your research potential (30% of the total weight) is more about your ability to write a proposal than the actual merit of the research, which makes sense because how do you compare merit of a project in one discipline with one in a totally different one? If you think you are in this case, then maybe discussing it with your advisor would be a good idea. Maybe you want to write a different proposal that works for all 4 schools. Or change your top 4 school choices.

Note: I voted based on the example text, not the description of the two styles you provided. From the description, I would have voted 50/50. Here, I quote your description and I will bold the things I think your SOP should have but strike-through the things that you have applied to the #2 style that isn't really necessary: "The general style of IR publications is anything but vivid. It's careful, clear, and concise. It eliminates adjectives and adverbs, replaces gut-punching verbs with their emotionless equivalents, and speaks in the stilted manner of a indifference. Neutrality is key." That is, my favourite SOPs are the ones that are carefully and concisely written. The writer chooses words carefully to convey the right message. There are no "gut-punching" words that sound fun but don't have a clear meaning. However, this doesn't mean that there is no emotion and that it must be stilted. And you don't have to be neutral either. So I would encourage you to find a balance where you can combine a compelling narrative that is also clear and concise. However, based on the examples, #2 is way better. It picks out some of the most important ideas from #1 and presents them in a much easier to read manner. You could add more "colour" to it if you want, but #1 is very very distracting (albeit fun to read). There are so many details that I don't know what to focus on. That is, I have to read your paragraph and then think about it in order to digest / get the info I want. Think of it this way: Imagine how your reader is going to parse your essay. Unfortunately, it is very likely not going to curled up in a nice comfy armchair with a cup of tea/other beverage leisurely reading the text. Instead, it is much more likely going to be at their desk, on a plane, at a train station, etc. They will be reading (probably skimming) your essay along with the dozens or hundreds of other essays. You might get 2 minutes of their time at first. When I read your #1 quickly, I remember two things: "you like Japan" and "you tell a story with lots of details". When the reader finishes, what impact do you want to leave? Storytelling skills isn't going to get you into your graduate program. When I read #2, I quickly see that you have studied Japanese for a long period of time. I think this is concrete and quantifiable detail is much more useful to the committee than the vague sense of "this person is interested in Japan". More importantly, when committee members debate the merits of each application, you want to equip the person who will speak on your application with concrete details they can say about you. I'll put in a caveat that this comes from someone in STEM, which is different from both IR and the humanities. The writing style of #1 is never used in academic writing in STEM. You wouldn't write like that for grants, papers, or other applications/proposals. It's not that it's not valued, it's just that writing like this doesn't demonstrate a skill that the committees are looking for. I don't think most reasonable profs will think negatively of someone who wrote in style of #1, it's just that it makes it harder to find useful information but provides no benefit. However, if this type of writing is important for an IR graduate student to have, then my advice may not apply. I only mention it because you say that the IR essays are not like #1 so that might indicate to me that your field expects essays more like mine. Finally, I do think it's really important to write the way you want though. Your best self will shine through when you are able to do what you want. From your description of the two styles, it sounds like you really dislike #2 and would prefer #1. So I would suggest working more towards a 50/50 that isn't just page 1 of #1 and page 2 like #2. For what it's worth, I know a STEM grad student that had their SOP in the style of a photo essay and that worked out well. They are an excellent communicator though, so although I have not seen their application, I am sure they were still very successful in communicating the key points. That is, I think most objections to "colourful" style is not the style itself, but focusing on creating the most compelling story sometimes leaves out or hides the details that the reader wants. If you can do both though, then that is ideal. But many will choose the "safer" path of the #2 style.

It likely depends a lot on the program you are applying to. In my field, many programs don't actually ask for a "Statement of Purpose" but instead, ask for some other essay with some other prompt that is similar to the US schools' SOP prompt but different enough so you know what to write. One program I applied to did not ask for one single essay but a series of paragraph-length questions instead. There was another program in Canada that was run more like the US system where you don't identify a specific project but you do identify interests so that you would basically be applying to work with a particular faculty member (or one of several faculty members). I pulled up one of my old essays (called a "personal profile document" instead of a SOP for this Canadian school) where I mostly discussed my history. There was one paragraph on what I would want to do at that school and one sentence about a potential project. It was very vague though: something like, "I would use Technique X to study Objects Y". But no mention of a research question in particular, however, it was enough info for the department to know what I might want to do and enough info for faculty members to decide if I would be interested in what they did or not. ** At many Canadian schools, your offer letter will say, you are accepted to work with Prof. X (or Profs. X and Y). Some schools allow Canadian students to have one semester before committing to a supervisor but international students must be admitted directly to a supervisor. Usually because a TAship alone is enough to pay for a domestic student's tuition but an international student requires some department or advisor specific support. So, I think if you are applying in Canada and especially if you are not a Canadian citizen, you should reach out to the profs you might want to work with and see what they say about the application procedures in your department. In my field, it's actually quite common for an applicant and faculty member to discuss potential projects and the application itself before you submit. (** Note: This was just my application. I was accepted but I don't know for sure if I did the right thing or not. Maybe I was accepted despite my terrible project paragraph.)

I am a little confused. If you sent the recommendation request, then why did your recommender upload the letter if it was not ready yet? I think you should first discuss it with your letter writer to ensure that they actually want to update the letter. If so, then your letter writer can check the LOR instructions first to see if there's a way to edit the letter. If not, then you should check your application form to see if there is a way to delete the letter. If so, then do that and resend the recommendation request. If that's not possible either, then contact the application form help desk to find out if there is some way to do this or if you have to restart the whole process.

In that case, I think you should check with your main advisor/letter writer to see their advice. You might also have to check with the school you're applying to in order to find out what they want. Maybe this is a letter of recommendation that needs to specifically recommend you for advanced standing MSW instead of just a regular MSW. Even so, it's not clear if one of your letter writers should be writing this instead of the standard LOR or in addition to the LOR. Your own advisor should know the answer if this is a normal thing in your field. If it's not, then you'll definitely get the best answer from the program itself.

Thanks @juilletmercredi!

I meant no one at my school was monitoring the activities of on-campus personnel, but would have no idea about external monitors!

When I was a grad student at a private university, the school also told us during orientation that we should expect no privacy with our .edu email accounts too. Use of the email account and all campus IT services is dependent on agreeing that the University could examine/inspect our usage, including our emails and internet traffic if they wanted to**. So it's not just limited to public universities. **Of course, in reality, there is far too much for anyone to be monitoring all of the traffic, but as you said, it could be dug up if an investigation requires it.

As a student, I attended a few talks on applying to jobs outside of academia. Many of them were given by those who used to be in academia, but there were some given by someone who regularly hires academics but had not completed any graduate work. I am now a postdoc and I am not applying to jobs this year (thankfully). But in the future, at the next cycle, I expect to be applying to both academic and non-academic positions, mostly because I want to remain in my current geographical location and there's only so many academic jobs. In these previous seminars, I heard a lot about framing your research in a way that is interesting to non-academic hiring committees. One speaker showed an example academic describing their work on a CV-like document and compared it to how it should appear for one specific tech job (in this case, it was software development). The academic version was focussed on the scientific question and result. The version formatted for the tech job was all about skills and techniques. So for now, I would plan on using the advice I got to reframe all of my research work as techniques and skills I developed (programming languages, statistical techniques etc.) But I still worry about how this looks when employers will see a ~7 year period of time where I basically highlight skills that would only take 1-2 years for someone who wasn't completing a graduate program to learn and master. Am I wrong to think about trying to indicate the scale/scope of my graduate work? Or should I take this advice at face value and trust that those looking to hire "former" academics will know that we're coming from a different system. Would really like to hear your thoughts! (P.S. To clarify, there will be no subject content overlap between the research and the industry job(s) I would apply to, because I don't think there are very many companies that would make decisions based on our understanding of planet orbits or how many planets are out there! But the algorithms and computational techniques I use does overlap with what companies may want to hire).

I agree---it sounds like you have plenty of people who can write letters for you. Is there a "rule" that you must include your current dept head no matter what? It sounds like your dept head handled this very poorly. This might also be a difference in fields, but I also thought it was very unorthodox for a graduate student to chastise undergrads the way it sounded like you did. In my field/departments, the correct thing to do would have been to talk to the people in charge of the undergraduates. For example, if it's related to coursework, perhaps the instructor. If it was an undergrad in my research group, I would talk to our mutual advisor/PI. Some exceptions are when a grad student is actually directly put in charge of undergraduates (e.g. a team of undergrad TAs led by a grad TA, or a research project directly led by a graduate student).

I would guess that it comes from journals that use multi-column formats since I can't imagine that looking good with left-alignment. But maybe you have a counter-example? Then, for better or for worse, this use of justified alignment extended even to single column format. There are lots of things I don't like about academic writing/formatting but I just treat it as a constraint to work within. I try to reword sentences to avoid long whitespace breaks. That said, like Eigen, I would be very interested to see any examples/sources that show this could lead to accessibility issues. In that case, I would certainly argue for breaking "tradition"/"conventional" for better accessibility!

No problem By the way, at most schools/depts I've been at, the end of term exams is an extra busy time for faculty because most schools have policies like "final grades must be submitted X days after the final exam". So that's why having the advance notice is helpful for profs, especially for Dec 15 (for my school's exam schedule)

Perhaps someone in the field can correct me if I'm wrong, but this does not sound like a question that expects you to reveal details about your patients and i doesn't sound like a test of whether or not you can follow HIPPA. Instead, this reads very very much like one of those lists of standard interview questions that is used to assess your behaviour and how you interact with others. For example, questions like, "Describe a time where you had a conflict with someone. How did you resolve it?" or "Describe a time where you disagreed with your superior. How did you proceed?" Perhaps for your specific program, they are asking this question to see how you would interact with people in your department. Or to test if you can remain impartial/professional in your work if you know some details about their personal life. Or maybe they didn't really think about the questions they are asking and just pulled them from some list. In any case, I don't think you need to tell them who the person is and/or how you know the person if it is not relevant to how you answer the rest of the questions. You don't have to tell them that this person is a coworker or a patient. If it helps, you can just change the identity of the person you're writing about (both to protect their privacy and to make your story more anonymous). Write about your coworker/patient as if they were an acquaintance or friend of a friend or something like that. However, if this question does have special meaning in your field and/or there's a specific strategy to this type of question in your field, I'd defer to those in your field. But if this is one of those generic job interview questions, then I'd recommend doing the above.

In my field, justified is the preferred alignment as well, for the same reasons everyone else said. To figure out why it's cutting off 2 pages, you should identify one example line that gets removed due to the switch from left-aligned to justified. Then, see if anything is weirdly formatted about that line. Look at a few other lines where this happens to see if you can find the pattern. If left-aligned is 50 pages and justified is 48 pages, I would bet that you really only have 48 pages and it's some weird formatting issue with left-aligned that adds two extra pages. So, it's more likely that left-aligned is "inflating" your page count rather than the other way around.

At my school, there are some support groups and resources on campus to help you navigate these conversations. For example, my PhD school's diversity center has lots of events to connect women to share experiences about these exact issues. Talking to others who have felt the same thing could help and you could learn other strategies too. Another resource at my school is the Graduate Office. One of the Graduate Deans' main job is to advocate for graduate students to the faculty at my school. Going there can also help with some strategies to bring this up with faculty. If the Dean has a good relationship with the prof in question, they might have some backchannel way of bringing this up without naming you (although, in almost all cases, it will be very obvious who brought up the complaint). I think these channels are better at modifying the faculty as a whole, not individual cases. One thing that my school's Title IX office started doing was to implement "implicit bias training" or "unconscious bias training" at the department or even the lab group level. We were trying to get people thinking about these topics just as much as they would think about other important lab issues, such as safety. So, just as most lab groups have a safety refresher every year, we try to start having unconscious bias training every year too. It's done in a discreet way. We try to get profs who are already allies on board first and get them to invite the TItle IX office to come and give a talk during a group meeting, which helps reduce the stigma that if the Title IX office is coming then you're in trouble. At least at my school, their goal is to educate as well as enforce/investigate. Then, if someone is in a group where something problematic is going on, someone can invite the Title IX office for a targeted "refresher" training. No mention of any specific instances within that group, just general training that hopefully makes people think. Many women reported that this greatly helped their work conditions and no one thought of them as the "complainer". Usually, the Title IX office is invited either by allies within (e.g. male grad students suggesting it), or the Title IX office might invite itself (good if the prof doesn't think of themselves as a problem but does some problematic actions) or from above: Dept Chair requiring all groups to do it. Finally, one other strategy is to discuss these issues with your male colleagues, if you feel comfortable with it and feel that they would be helpful. It sounds like some of them already spoke up when they noticed you were left out of the acknowledgements. Maybe they don't notice all the other things. But once they do, they might help amplify your voice/contributions in other ways too. If you don't like this angle, you definitely don't have to do it. But I just wanted to provide an example of action where it's on everyone to ensure an equitable working environment, not just the person being discriminated against!

Here's what I did. Around July/August: Talked to profs about my grad school plans so they know to expect LOR. But also since they were good mentors, to get their thoughts/advice. (approx) October 1: let them know about my draft school list, get feedback / make final application determinations. Ask them how they would like to be notified and reminded for letter requests. Ask them what else they need to write letters (draft SOP? transcripts? etc.) (approx) November 1: created a 1-page summary of all deadlines, dept names, POIs, research interets, GPA/GRE score summary etc. Sent this to profs along with plan for reminders and whatever the profs wanted. Then, sent reminders as I said above. So for you, if you haven't talked to the profs since July, doing what I did on Nov 1 is probably a good idea. Also a good idea to check in with them in case they wanted some other info for the letters so you have time to provide it before the Dec 15 deadlines.

Unfortunately, there is not much you can do with the school that cancelled their program However, you said that you turned down other offers to other schools. Can you contact them now and let them know what happened? Maybe they will still have a spot for you.

Good point. I only said "senior students" because I'm noticing more and more students in my field don't create research websites and online CVs until their 3rd year (first two years are too busy with quals and/or coursework). But probably was not a good idea to generalize this to everywhere!

Look up a CV for a senior grad student in your field. I'm in a different field, but my CV when I was applying had: Education (list year, school name, degree name and thesis advisor/title if you had a thesis; no GPA) Awards (research fellowship awards, not academic awards) Research experience Publications and presentations Service/Leadership Other work experience (only had this on my grad app CV, I no longer have this section) --- I wouldn't put GPA and courses since they can be found in your transcript, unless you were specifically instructed to do so.