TakeruK

Sure (about tagging), although I think you'll be on a good track so probably not many more comments other than the big picture ones I already wrote. I like the change from "biggest questions" to "questions on the biggest scale". I also have heard similar things about the "conventional" path/pressure to study Engineering from my friends in similar situations. To be clear, I don't mean to say that you did the wrong thing or anything like that. I just think that for a SOP, you don't need to explain this! You can either put a positive spin on why you chose Engineering (instead of others choosing for you), or just leave out the motivation/reasons completely.

Some brief overall comments. Not in any particular order. 1. I put this essay into wordcounter.net and it said 916 words which is quite long for most programs. Especially since you want to add a department-specific portion (good idea!) you will need to cut other parts of your essay. 2. Not sure the best word to use here, but there are several places where it feels like you are "putting down" the fields you want to study. That is, every time you want to say something positive about some aspect, you tend to include a negative to compare it to. For example, in the first paragraph, you write that you weren't sure about Physics so you went to Engineering instead. Maybe this was unintentional, but it sounds like you are saying you were good enough for physics (aced the exams etc.) but you decided to do something else instead. Another example is when you said you thought cosmology was the branch of physics that asked the biggest questions, implying that you don't think the other branches of physics are as interesting/important. And another example is when you talked about enjoying your "proper" courses in your Masters degree, you contrast it with being "disillusioned" in your undergrad courses. Remember that there will be physicists of several backgrounds reading your statement, and not all of them will think cosmology is even interesting/important. I would recommend that you go back over your essay and ensure that when you are saying something positive about your interests, you just stick to the positives. I am not sure where in the world you're applying, but especially in North America, it is generally considered very unprofessional to ever mention any negative things about any other organization in school applications and job applications. 3. I think your word choice in a few places is odd. They might have similar dictionary meanings, but they carry some connotation that isn't as positive. Here is a list of the ones I saw: "ace": this reads as arrogant/juvenile to me. It's something high school or college kids might say in a competitive academic environment, but not really an appropriate word for physics graduate programs, in my opinion. I think you can just leave these descriptions out. "composed [a quiz]": maybe try "created" or "developed" instead of "composed" "stints": this generally carries a negative meaning. Use "time" instead maybe. 4. In some places, I think you have too much detail and emphasize aspects that aren't that important to a grad admissions committee. For example, I think you can combine the first 3 paragraphs into a single paragraph describing your academic and research work at BITS. I think you should remove most of paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 though. Replace the paragraph where you mention you chose a "conventional" path with your motivation for entering an EE program instead. 5. I do think most of your paragraphs describing your research goes into a good amount of detail. There are a few things that might be too detailed though, which you can remove to save space. One example is your sentence on cricket. I think this is really cool! But the last bit is confusing to a non-cricket expert: I also built my own cricket statistics database, and formulated new statistics, Moneyball style, to gauge performances, including using survival analysis to extend censored “not-out” innings. I would suggest shortening it to something like: I also built my own cricket statistics database, and formulated new statistics and used survival analysis, Moneyball style, to gauge performances [of players?] I guessed the last part but replace it with performances of teams or something else if more correct. 6. Finally, I feel like this essay is very very much backwards/past focused. I learn a lot about your history but I don't know anything about why you want to be in a physics PhD program. I think your first paragraph needs to address this right away. Something like, "I am applying to [department] because I am interested in [your PhD research interests]." Then motivate this interest (scientifically). Then, I think you should reduce your other paragraphs so that your history/past is no more than 50% of your essay. 1000 words is already a very long SOP and you still need to put the department-specific stuff, so you might have to condense a lot. Remove the less important details, especially if they are not telling a key point and can be seen on your CV or elsewhere. And in addition to the paragraph(s) about the department specifically, most SOPs want you to write about your future plans too. Just a few sentences. But think about why you want a PhD and how a PhD fits in with your future career goals.

Glad to hear you have something you are happy with!! Congrats!

Something you can do is to find people working in positions you think you might want to do / be qualified for and talk to them. They can help you get a good sense of whether you are qualified and if not, whether a few small things can change it or if it would mean a lot more work to get there. Asking for an "informational interview", like 15 minutes over Skype or coffee or something might be a good idea. The hard part is finding people who can do this. Sometimes you can just ask---it doesn't really hurt! But if you know someone who knows someone at an organization you want to for at (or similar to one), then reach out and see if they can introduce you. That's what LinkedIn is partially for anyways! Another thing to try is your career center again (if you can still access them as an alumni). Instead of just talking to a career advisor, perhaps ask them to connect you to alumni at organizations you are interested in. The names you get would presumably be all people interested in speaking with you since this would be a self-identified list of people! These connections are the way the majority of people I know from grad school who either left the PhD program for a good job or went onto a good job directly after graduation.

Yeah your point #2 is what I mean when I mentioned the size of this company. If it's some mega-corporation, you'd be doing this with HR and not the dept you're working with. But at a small place, even if there are separate HR people, they would still be around and be in contact with your dept. If salary isn't that important after all, then I'd say do what you think you'll enjoy more. The value of the stock options in the big company would completely depend on the details of the offer, right? I guess you won't get that info until later. It might require you to stay employed for some time before you can exercise the option. Is the "Big Pharma" company already publicly traded? Do you have the capital to buy the stocks to take advantage of the option? If they didn't tell you when they wanted a decision from you, then you could ask them. They might ask you how long you need, so be prepared for that question. But again, only need to "stall" if you are interested in the other offer over this one. If you know you want this one more, and you don't plan on negotiating the offer, then just take it.

Congrats on getting the job! I think the next step is to actually decide between this one and the "Big Pharma" one. It sounds like you really do like this job better so if you prefer it, then you should take it. Despite what I said in the other thread, I personally would pick this one over the Big Pharma position. Personally, for something meant to fill a year between undergrad and grad school, the difference in salary is not worth the extra commute and the less interesting job. But I answered the other thread based on what you stated your own priorities were, so the best answer depends on each person of course. I'm not familiar with employment through contracting companies---it's not clear if this is one of those positions (like you wrote about in the weeks prior) or if you are being directly hired by the small biotech firm. If it's a direct hire, can you ask for a better compensation package? What if you said that you did some more research about these positions and you believe a fair salary would be $45k per year? As far as I know, most industry jobs expect you to negotiate, but if this is one of those contractor thingys then I don't know how that works. If this salary bump is the main reason you prefer the other job then this is probably the best thing to do. What I mean is that you should only proceed to negotiate if you plan on accepting if you get what you want. In addition, the process of making the request and them considering then making their decision known to you will take up some time. Maybe you'll here from the Big Pharma company in a few days too. Or, you can just ask them if you can have some time to think about the offer. I would normally say you might consider whether or not you want to say there's a potential for another offer so you would like a little more time. However, this would seem odd given that you told them their job is your ideal job. If they made the offer based on the thinking that you would love to be there, then this action might change how they feel about you. In addition, because this is a small, 50-person company, it's not like you can just blend in and be anonymous. Note that you should take this advice at your own risk! Nothing is certain and it's not unheard of for companies to change their mind if the candidate tries to ask for more time or negotiate. But this is probably a sign that you might not want to work there anyways. Just some things to think about here.

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Based on what you say your priorities are and the fact that you're just looking for some source of income / resume building while you wait for grad school, I'd also say to go with the Big Pharma (BP) job over the small biotech (SB). For each of your priorities: Salary: It sounds like BP wins in this category, however, I'd say 5k/year for less than a year isn't a big difference. To me, the valuable part is the benefits (in particular: health insurance and retirement) and the stock. It would depend on what these are, but either way, the compensation for BP is equal to or better than SB. I would say that the commute is an important factor though, as that will cost you money and time. Are you able to move closer to work if you get the job? Opportunity: I think both offers would have similar benefits. SB will give you the chance to learn a lot of different skills. BP, being in line with your future research interest, might provide a post-PhD opportunity for you. Since this is a <1 year job, I'd say go with BP because grad school will also give you a chance to learn lots of skills. If you decide against going to grad school later, for whatever reason, you can always move onto a different job if BP doesn't provide what you need. Interest: This is subjective and it sounds like SB is more interesting to you than BP. Nothing really for me to say here though. Resume building: Thinking about post-PhD positions, your main credential will be your PhD, not whatever you did for a year before your PhD. So I think the exact nature of your work for this year won't matter as much (i.e. it won't matter too much that the BP job will provide less skills training). But having the BP name can help you get other similar jobs. In this category, I'd say the better resume-building position is the one most similar to your potential non-academic job interests beyond your PhD. That is, if you want to work for places like SB after graduation, then maybe SB is a better resume builder. Note that in my opinion, grad school will provide experiences more like SB than BP, so if you want to work at SB-like places after PhD, you can probably use your grad school experience to show that you'll fit into the SB-like culture, no need to have been at SB before grad school. Finally, one last thing: in grad school, there will be fun/great times and there will be sucky times where you'll think---wow, I could be doing something else in industry and while I may still not like it, at least I'll make better money / have good benefits / etc. But it's also easy to have the "grass is greener on the other side" mentality. I think having experience in something like a BP company can help dispel that. Either you will really like it and it will help guide your goals in grad school. Or, if you find out that you actually don't like working at BP at all, it will dispel the "greener grass" myth and help motivate you when grad school gets tough.

Here's another perspective: As the committee chair and a faculty member, he can take way more liberties with these things than you can, as a graduate student. He might have decided that he wanted to impress the need for confidentially on you because he might have thought you were not familiar with the committee rules. Also, if you break confidentiality, it would be much worse for you than it would be for him. And it would probably be bad for him too as he is your advisor. In this perspective, it doesn't excuse the fact that he revealed a name that he shouldn't have. But in this perspective, it's not about you. Just something to consider too.

I know we're in different fields, but just to add: job applications, especially at the faculty stage, are pretty much an "open secret". One very reliable way to figure out who is being considered is to just look at the invited seminars/colloquium speakers list by the host department. If there's a search going on, the invited speakers coming within a few months from the deadline are likely the shortlisted candidates. Especially if there are some "special" seminars scheduled outside of the regular schedule. In addition, there are open wikis like this: http://www.astrobetter.com/wiki/Rumor+Mill+2015-2016+Faculty-Staff (I linked to the faculty/staff version from a previous year but there is one for this year plus a version for postdoc positions too). So, I don't think the breach is that serious and it's not like everything needs to be 100% secret/confidential. In my opinion, the part of a job search that actually needs to be confidential are 1) the deliberations/discussions of candidates and 2) the candidates current employers should not be told. If their current employer hears about it through the grapevine, it's not as much of a big deal since it's just heresay/rumors. Finally, unless you have been told specifically otherwise, I think you should tell your fellow grad students that you are the grad student rep on the committee. Again, unless you are tasked differently, generally the grad student rep is supposed to represent the grad student opinion, which you cannot do unless you talk to your "constituents". One common thing is for the grad student rep to let people know they are the rep and have some way for people to provide comments/thoughts (either anonymously or not). At this stage, you might want to collect general thoughts/priorities from grad students. That said, remember that grad students will probably have very little influence, but if they invited you on the committee, then they want to hear the student perspective, so you might as well provide it. Later on, the short listed candidates will probably visit and meet with students so you might be expected to aggregate student feedback about the top X candidates and present them to the committee. So if you have a good working relationship with your colleagues now, you can be sure they are comfortable telling you their true feelings later. You have a tough job though because you're the "messenger" target. If the faculty don't like the student opinions, they will see it come from you. And if the students find that their opinions didn't agree with the committee, you'll be the point person. So being clear that you are speaking on behalf of many students, not your own opinion and being clear about your role on the committee to set proper expectations might be a good idea. Note: That last paragraph was solely on my experience with search committees in my field, which can be very different. Before you do anything, be sure to ask the committee chair about your actual role. Since you said grad student "rep", I went with that, but if they really just want your own personal professional opinion then that's different.

Congrats!!

The ones you named are basically the entirety of the large governmental (federal and provincial) sources. There are also awards from non-profit (usually) organizations or "foundations" that fund specific research in line with their goals. For example, a major one in the humanities and social sciences is the Trudeau Doctoral Scholarship: http://www.trudeaufoundation.ca/en/programs/doctoral-scholarships I don't think this one applies to you (but since you asked for general stuff that can help others, I wanted to name this one since it's a very big award). Most of the awards in this category are usually smaller though (less than $10k/year). But you can combine them with TA or other awards. Another one is the MITACS Accelerate: https://www.mitacs.ca/en/programs/accelerate This one is open to all fields, so maybe it can apply to you, however the research is done with a MITACS partner organization (in industry). MITACS is an organization with the goals of connecting academia with industry. There are also departmental or institutional awards that you might be considered for along with your application (i.e. not something you'd apply to before applying to schools). One way to find out about awards you might have missed is to read your department's page for prospective or incoming grad students. Sometimes it's on the page for new grad students too. Most schools are interested in you winning outside awards so they try to provide as much info as possible!

Ah okay. Yeah then it sounds like current job is one of the "exception" cases where it's probably worth burning the bridge. I think what I wrote above regarding timing of Job 3 offer vs. 1 & 2 would still work out for you. Even though your current data entry position is only 2 months, I probably wouldn't mention it to Jobs 1-3 unless you were directly asked or something. Hopefully there will be no breach-of-contract problem for you if you resign before the 2 months is up. Maybe you can even have your Job 1 start date (if you get it) be after the 2 months is up, since it will only be another month between their decision and your two month contract ending. Good luck

You should talk to your letter writers about this. Ideally, they write you different letters for different programs. Usually letter writers write the letters that are very specific when it comes to you and your details but quite generally when it comes to the "addressee". So, it should just be a matter of find/replace the field names and school names. Find out how your letter writers would like to know the information. For me, I had a table of school names, deadlines and dept name (some were field1 some were field2). This helped them keep track of how to "address" each letter.

Congratulations on getting a job! Since you are asking for "best practices" advice, let me first say that you probably should not have taken the job you currently have if you are still on the market for more jobs. It's pretty bad behaviour to be immediately looking for other jobs when you just started something. I am not sure if your current job is related to these three other jobs and/or your future intended job path. If your current job is in the field you want to work in the future and if the employer offered it intending it to be more than just very temporary, then I think it is best to not burn any bridges. Especially since you have plans for graduate school and will leave in a year anyways, I'm not certain it's a good idea to switch at this point. If all parties have considered it to be a temporary thing (a few weeks/months) or if the job is not in your field, then maybe still consider the job change. You will still likely piss off people at your current work and if your new work finds out about what you did, it will still reflect poorly on you. But if this change is so important to you, you will have to weigh the risks vs. reward. At least if the job is not in your field, you may be able to just hide it from your employment record. However, depending on what you want to apply to in the future, it might not be hidden forever. For example, some government positions may require you to disclose all previous employers. If the difference between current job and Jobs 1-3 is really big (i.e. worth potentially burning these bridges) then maybe you should resign from current job now and dedicate your time to finding a job you actually will stay at for more than a month. This will also prevent the awkwardness of letting jobs 1 or 2 know that you are going to quit a job you just started. If the difference is small and you need the guaranteed income, then it is probably not worth burning bridges. In that case, perhaps just staying in your current job until grad school is the best option. ----- To answer this question: Do **not** do this leapfrogging thing. It is highly unprofessional and if employers/recruiters know about this, they will be much less likely to hire you. If you end up deciding to leave your current job to pursue one of these three, here would be the best course of action: First, when you get the phone call notifying you about the job, remember that you should not have to make a decision on the spot (if so, that's kind of fishy!). Be enthusiastic, thank them for the opportunity and say that you would like some time to process it. Maybe they will give you a deadline to respond, otherwise, ask if you can call back tomorrow if you have any questions. Then, call up Job #1. Tell them that you really enjoyed interviewing with them and ask if there has been any update on your application. You can then also inform them that you just got an offer from another place and that the other place wants you to respond by <deadline>. Tell Job #1 that you remain very interested in their opening and would like to know if you would get a decision by <deadline> or if not, please let you know when they would know. If Job #1 tells you that you are no longer in the running for the job, thank them for their time and do the same thing with Job #2. However, if Job #1 is still possible, don't call Job #2 yet. In my opinion, by making a request like this, you are basically signalling that if offered, you will take their job, so if you do this to Job #2 while Job #1 is still in the running, you might not be able to commit to #2. If Job #1 tells you that you will know by <deadline>, then thank them and wait until <deadline>. If necessary, follow up with Job #3 at an appropriate time to let them know that you're still interested and ask them any questions you have. You can tell them you'll respond by their deadline if that was not already clear. If Job #1 tells you that you will know by <some date after deadline>, then thank them for the update. Then, call back to Job #3 and ask if you can respond by <job 1 deadline> instead. It's up to you whether to do this right after hearing from Job #1 (i.e. within a day or two of the initial offer) or wait until closer to the deadline. It's also up to you whether or not you reveal that you are waiting to hear back from another job (you don't want to pass on the impression that you only want their position because you got nothing else better). But if you are directly asked, maybe being honest is good. This part is tricky, maybe others have good advice. I believe this order will maximize the chances of getting the job you want while maintaining professionalism and courtesy. Note that there is a possibility that you must decide on Job #3 before you know about Job #1. Such is life / real world job market. At that point, you will have to decide whether a guaranteed job #3 is worth more than the possibility of job #1 (or #2). Tough call. Luckily, it's only a year so it's not like you're stuck forever. --- Finally, in response to: You have to take personal days, sick days or vacation days to do this. If location works, maybe a lunch break. If you have flexible hours, then maybe start/leave early or start/leave late. I know plenty of people who need to find new jobs while working. It's always awkward but understood to be part of the process. Note that most companies will not allow you to take sick days for interviews so you'll have to be smart about that. This is another reason why it's a terrible idea to try to find a new job when you have just started one. You won't have these days off and unexplained absences early on is very questionable. I mean what's done is done now, but for others reading this or for your future job searches, it generally causes more trouble than it's worth to try to change jobs within a few months of starting. But sometimes you have to do what you have to do since there's bills to pay etc. I just want to emphasize one more thing: Obviously do not use any of current company resources or time to conduct these interviews/job searches. Don't use their phones, their computers, their printers etc. It's not unheard of for a current employee to lose both their current position and their job offer if their current employer finds out and tells their new prospective employer.

I was going to write similar things as @Eigen did. Do what you enjoy. Undergrad/college is the time for you to explore your interests and try new things. The only advice I would give is that if you are definitely interested in grad school, then definitely try to get at least one REU or some sort of undergrad research experience. Not only it will help your application but it will also let you try out research to see if you actually like it. The other half of this same advice is that while it's great to have grad school aspirations now, leave yourself room to follow a different path if you decide that you don't like research or find another calling. I would offer one different perspective though. I agree with Eigen that you shouldn't jump around just to get a bunch of stuff on your CV. But you also don't have to stick with one thing the entire 3-4 years either. It's perfectly okay to move from one research area to another or from one student group to another. In terms of research, I personally chose to explore a lot of different subfields during undergrad. After my first research summer in planetary astronomy, I knew I wanted to do that. So, my other research experiences were all in different forms of astro/physics. Still in the same department, but different groups/areas completely. I wanted to try other things to know that I really do like planetary astronomy above all others and not just because it was the first thing I enjoyed. I don't think this hurt my application---the school that I went to for my PhD said that they felt that diverse experience was a plus. Similarly, being president of a club for 3 out of 4 years might be really fun or it might not really let you grow as a leader. It might also stagnate the club since you would have built up so much institutional memory in your 3 years and then suddenly hand it off. Obviously I have no idea what your club is like but based on my own experience in student leadership at undergrad and graduate level, I wouldn't take a role at the VP level or higher for more than 2 years. At both levels, I was involved in executive council/board/leadership for 3-4 years, but I found it better to step back a little bit after a VP or higher role. That said, I do not think student leadership really plays a large role in graduate school admissions. You should do it because you want to do it and because you are passionate about it, not because you want it for your grad school application CV. I will temper this advice by saying that you should stay long enough/committed enough to one thing to get something out of it though. It's hard to get to a paper publication as an undergrad but if possible, staying long enough to get a finished product, a conference presentation or something like that would be good. As for leadership, I'd set some realistic goals at the start of my term and aim to finish most of them. Finally, to mention one major exception: Sometimes research groups are toxic and/or the professor is acting unethically/inappropriately. In these cases, I think it's important to take care of yourself. It might be better to leave a bad situation than to feel like since you made a choice, you must "commit" even when your research boss is making your life hell.

I second what fuzzy said. I think you should ask one of the letter writers from your Masters degree to mention your class standing and/or the average grade in your class. I actually do not think a 3.5 GPA for a graduate program is that bad. It is not a "top of the class" GPA but at the same time, graduate school isn't all about achieving high grades. Especially since there is not much you can do about your GPA at this point (other than the letter writer suggestion), I wouldn't worry about it anymore. Your entire set of achievements as a graduate student will be weighed more heavily than just your graduate GPA.

So glad it worked out for you. And everything you said in your bullet point list is so true. In my years on my PhD school's grad student government, whenever we had a student come to us with issues, it was these factors that are important. Just wanted to add, in case there are people reading this and feel that they might have very little social capital. Point #3 (resources) is also very important. At my PhD school, one major role of the grad student government and the Graduate Dean's office is to help provide that social capital that a student might be lacking. So even if you don't have that much social capital, there are hopefully resources on campus that is designed to use their social capital to help you. The Associate Graduate Dean at my PhD school's main job is basically to do just that.

I agree with the above. It's dangerous to try to infer things from websites. The only exception is that if you go to a professor's website and their website specifically says, "I am looking for doctoral students starting in Fall 2018" or something similar (or saying the reverse of this). Note that you want to make sure you can put a date on that statement! If you want to check whether or not someone is **able** to advise students, then you can see if their website or CV lists the students they're advising. I find it interesting that some fields don't allow untenured professors to advise students. In my field, it's often the other way around---untenured faculty tend to take on more students so that more work is done so that they are more likely to get tenure. But that's just an interesting side note.

Although I think the professor's guidance is spot on in this case, there are plenty of bad advice coming from professors out there. Some professors are just entirely out of touch with the current reality or assumes everyone has the same goals as they did. For example, I know some profs at R1 schools telling undergrad students in their first year that grades are useless and research is the only thing that matters. And while it might be true that your research experience matters a lot more than your GPA for grad school applications, it's extremely poor advice to give to a new college student who might not want to go into academia, for example. When a professor knows your situation well and when you know the professor is looking out for you, then it makes sense to trust the professor's advice over other sources. But this is not always the case, and I think students should seek guidance from many sources, especially if they are second-guessing the professor's advice. I've heard of many cases where the student goes along with a bad situation because the professor did something unethical and they never thought to second-guess the prof. That it's just part of normal academia. But if they had spoken to their peers, they might have known that what was happening was actually abnormal! I know that in this specific case, it does sound like the OP has a prof that is giving good advice. But I've seen you write this to several posts and I think it's important to point out that professors make mistakes and can give bad advice!

I would call this a stock positive reply. It means exactly what they say: if you get accepted, they would be glad to work with you. They are not making any statement on your chances of being accepted because there is no way they can know. Even if they are on the admissions committee, I don't think all the applications would be in yet so they wouldn't be in a position to judge your application. And even if they were, it is unlikely that you will get any evaluation through unofficial channels such as emails. You'll hear the results from the admissions committee once they are finished with the process. For me, this was the reply I was looking for. I wouldn't have wanted to apply to the school if they were not interested in the topic I proposed or if they did not want to take more students.

I agree with the great suggestions by @hats. I see many draft SOPs that narrate too much or uses too many unnecessary words or uses vague descriptions. Being concise is important and being clear is even more important! As for your professor's advice, I agree with them. I think it is better to say that you were interested in areas X or Y (or X, Y, and Z) or something like that instead of saying that you didn't know what you wanted to do. Similarly, later on, it's a little weird (to me) to read that these experiences "made you realise" you wanted to do something. It sounds a little passive and has the connotation that you didn't really know what you wanted to do. For these types of essays, you need to reframe the narrative. A good story is that after your undergraduate work, you were interested in a few areas (name them) so you enrolled in your Masters programs and did X, Y, and Z to explore these interests. Now, you know that you are most interested in X and want to pursue a PhD in that field. @hats makes a good point that you don't want to spend too much time dwelling on the past. I half-agree with them here. Since you say this is your first paragraph, I do think that it's better to leave this information until later. I would start the initial paragraph directly speaking about the PhD program you want to join, not your past experience. So, a good first paragraph might be directly saying what you want to do in their PhD program and why the research topic interests you. In my opinion, I find research topics motivated by the field/literature much more convincing than personal interest/passion for the topic. For example, if I was writing a proposal for exoplanets (my area of work), I would write about how the study of planets around other stars can lead to better understand of our own planet and the ones in our solar system. I wouldn't motivate my interest because I was introduced to astronomy by some aunt at age 4, or from watching Carl Sagan on TV, or from Star Trek or whatever. I'm not saying that these motivations are not valid, I would just personally advise against that in the opening paragraph. I do think there is a place for your Masters research experiences in your SOP though. At some point later, you might want to describe your previous experiences in detail to paint a picture of yourself as a qualified researcher. Your current paragraph shown here reads as a justification on why you took a Masters path first. If you feel the need to do this, that's fine, I'd say to follow the narrative I wrote above. However, note that you don't have to explain yourself. You can just discuss your Masters degree by describing all the great things you did and learned. Especially if you don't have space, I'd prioritize discussion of your qualifications due to your Masters rather than the reason you enrolled in a masters program. Finally, an overall point. A story/narrative format is a popular (and pretty safe) choice for a SOP format. But just like history is written by the victors, you should write/tell your story from the perspective of your successes. Your SOP (and in the future, all other writing you do for academic competitions) is not a tell-all biography. It is a marketing tool. I think it is important to determine what you want your audience to take away from your essay and then cherry pick the parts of your life story that support these points. I think this is a tough thing to learn how to do. It's a fine line between giving yourself credit for your earned successes and not sounding like you are full of yourself. It's a fine line between dishonesty in your portrayal of your past and ensuring that your accomplishments are noticed. It gets easier with practice and experience and with advice from mentors like your professor that you showed the essay to. (I think their advice is a perfect example of framing your narrative in this manner).

As others said, this is a very general question that is very hard to answer. Just to provide some examples from my field: The big US conference for Astronomy is a 4-day conference with 3000 attendees. However, almost everyone at the grad student level and higher has a very good chance of an oral presentation slot because these presentations are 7 minutes long (10 minute slots when including questions) and there are fifteen(!!) parallel sessions. Another big US conference is for Planetary Science and it is a 5 day conference (happening this week actually). There are about 1000 attendees and it is the conference culture to not have very many parallel sessions so that people aren't always bouncing from one room to another. They usually have 3 parallel sessions. Talk lengths are the same, so while the number of people is 1/3 of the first conference, there are 1/5 of the talk slots, making them more competitive. These two conferences are run by the national society for each respective field, and one of their policies is that all members have the right to present once a year. Therefore, if you are a member, then you will get a poster presentation if you are not selected for an oral slot. However, they try to encourage as many presenters as possible and most non-members are undergrad students so to encourage junior members to get involved, they will fit in as many posters as they can find space for. (Note: non-members do need to be sponsored by a member in order to attend/present though). The above are general conferences. We have specialized conferences on a particular topic that are usually been 150-300 people. These are 3-5 days and have only one single talk session (i.e. everyone sees every presentation). The presentation slots are much longer, typically 15-20mins. This leaves room for 30-50 talks per conference, usually. Being selected for an oral presentation is competitive! Often at these conferences, it is professors, postdocs and grad students in their final 2 years that are selected for talks, unless you have some really exciting results. These conferences are often very fun and very productive because I get to meet the small international community that cares about the exact same things as I do. However, one big downside is that the same big names often are selected for talks and some of these big name people give the same material over and over and over again. On one hand, this is because they have contributed key developments that everyone in the field must know about. But on the other hand, many of the attendees overlap and the fame/prestige doesn't mean much to these already big names. Lots of more junior people have good ideas too and it will be harder for them to share their results. So, one strategy to evaluate your chances of being accepted for a presentation is to look at how many attendees and how many talk slots. Then, look at the themes of the conference. If you are applying to a specific topic conference and you're a little on the outside of the field, then it will be harder to get a talk. Getting a talk selected is certainly a great accomplishment worthy of celebration (I save all of my emails notifying me of this in a folder of successes to encourage me when I feel down). However, it's not just merit-based if you don't get a talk. There are many factors outside of your control. The organizers may have specific themes in mind that aren't well communicated. Or, there just happens to be a few other people submitting the similar topics and they want to have diverse topics, so even if your work is "better" than another person in a different subfield, their talk might be selected for diversity of topic. As other said though, it is certainly a good idea to consider many different conferences and if you are limited in which ones you can attend, it's okay to prioritize the ones that select you for a presentation!

You're absolutely right. I would probably try again and phrase it differently. Maybe the email got sent at a bad time and got lost. Or maybe they didn't understand what you were asking. If you have a mentor at your undergrad school, perhaps you can discuss your email with them to see if you made a mistake or if you were not using the right word/phrasing etc. If you still don't hear anything, then it's a tough decision to make. I personally wouldn't apply to a program where I need to arrange my own assistantship ahead of time but the program does not respond to my inquiries.

No, you do not have to address it**, and one semester is not a long leave at all. Some applicants might choose to address it to provide a continuous narrative of what they did, in the same way as a cover letter for a job application might address gaps in employment as seen on the resume. If you took a leave to do something that you want to share (e.g. work in the industry, try to start a business, star in a TV show, etc.) then you might also want to address it. If it's a personal/health/family reason then I think it's up to you to decide if you want to mention it. For just one semester off, that level of personal detail isn't really necessary. The context of my point above might be something like a personal or health situation caused you to spend less time on academics to address the other priorities in your life. Your grades might drop or you might have switched to part-time status. Then maybe you decided that you needed some time completely off from academics. In this case, it's probably a good idea to mention the scenario in your application. Writing a couple of sentences in the SOP is fine but some applicants might feel that they are just "making excuses" and might be more comfortable with a letter writer who knew the student during this time to discuss it instead. (** In general. Some applications might have specific instructions that require you to do so.)