TakeruK

I've been a student at three schools: Big public school in Canada (undergrad), Medium/Big public school in Canada (Masters) and Small Private School in USA (PhD). I now work at a national lab type institution (i.e. not a university) but we work closely with the local university (I am working on getting affiliate status so that I can co-supervise graduate students there). This school would be a "Medium public school" in Canada. In terms of research support and ability to do what you want, I felt I had the most freedom and support at the Small Private School. It was simply a matter of resources, like others mentioned here. In my 5 years of my PhD, whenever I asked for something, I was never ever denied because of money/resources. Sometimes I proposed some crazy idea that wasn't going to work so the faculty gently steered me towards more fruitful work. Or, my ideas were not 100% fleshed out and they guided me into forming a better project/decision for myself. There was also a lot less bureaucracy at the Small Private School because a large chunk of the funding comes from private sources, rather than federal grants so there were a lot fewer strings attached. I think this aspect of Small Private Schools are more generally universal to all Small Private Schools and that's why they are so appealing for PhD or postdoc positions. This is a time where you really want to be able to reach your full potential so if you can make money not a problem, then that's better. Before my PhD program, I knew that these small private schools were rich in resources, which was why I focussed mostly on these schools in PhD applications. But I was still floored when I actually got there and realised how much more advantages you get at these places compared to others. Compared to the public schools in Canada, my PhD school simply had orders of magnitude more money. Students were paid much better. Students had tons more opportunities to travel to conferences etc. I think my advisor spent an average of $5000 per year on conference and work-related travel for me, whereas even postdoc positions in Canada often only have money for 1 or 2 conferences per year. Because advisors have tons of money for each student, they often cared less about whether we are doing work that advances their goals, but instead, encouraged all of us to do work that advances our own goals. Many advisors who knew their students wanted to go into industry (e.g. data science) helped their students find projects that are scientifically useful but ultimately designed to train them to go onto these other career paths. However, money and resources are not the only things necessary for success in grad school. As others also said, the environment really matters. This is why school visits were really important for me. I visited several of these "small private schools" and only found one place where I felt I really belonged and clicked well with the faculty and students. It was a school and department where each individual person mattered and was valued. We felt like one big extended family. There were several family oriented events happening throughout the year but the administrators knew every student well. This is something that is certainly not generally true across all "small private schools", i.e. not all small departments are tight-knit. It's not even generally true within the same school---some departments at my PhD schools were more "micromanaged" and less collegial than others. On the other hand, there are some advantages to the bigger school. More diversity in areas of expertise for example. My PhD school barely had any humanities or social sciences on campus at all. There was no law school, no medical school etc. So the student culture is very different from the big public schools. Also, because it was small, it felt a lot more like a research institution than an actual university. These are personal preferences of course. I really missed interacting with graduate students from outside of Sciences/Engineering when I was a PhD student. But I really didn't mind the non-university feel at all. Every day felt more like going into an office to do work instead of still being a "student", and I actually preferred that. When I visited actual large universities, I felt overwhelmed by all the stuff going on and people running around! Ultimately, I am happy with the path I took. I would not have liked being at my "Small Private School" for my undergraduate work. I think being at a large school with diverse areas of research and tons of things going on all the time was important to my personal development during my undergrad years. Exposure to lots of different things and opportunities to try new interests were good. Although I was sad that these were reduced in grad school, it was worth it for the additional support for my research and career development. Also, it wasn't all bad....because the student population was smaller it meant that there were way more spots (relative to number of students) for involvement in campus clubs, sports teams, government etc. There were tons of things my friends and I were able to do at our small school that we would never be able to do at a large school. So, if you can find a small school with an environment that suits you, I'd say go for it. But again, it's personal preference. To me, the single most important thing to get out of grad school was preparation for a career and being able to reach the fullest of my abilities. I was constantly frustrated by lack of resources during my Canadian programs and I feel super lucky to have found a PhD program in the USA that is full of resources and also great people.

My opinion is the same as rising_star's. If you can truly finish this with one extra semester, then do so. But remember it's really easy for researchers to think they are close to a result but after more analysis, it turns out even more work is needed. I often think I am 80% of the way finished only to realise that the remaining "20%" will take as much time as I have already put into a project. I am guessing the option to graduate and then stay with the lab as a paid researcher is not available? If you haven't asked your advisor about this, you should do so. They might be able to pay you at least the same as your grad stipend, if not more, since they no longer have to pay for your tuition. I know a few students who transition out of academic work by staying with the lab as part-time workers (getting a higher hourly rate but fewer hours = same stipend / cost to the PI) while they search for jobs and/or tie up personal loose ends before moving on (e.g. a partner who needs more time to graduate or finish their contract or whatever).

This may depend on the field, but I would say that for my field, formalities are not necessary and you can feel free to shorten things as long as it doesn't impede understanding. To be clear, I mean things like "Dr. Flimflam" instead of "Dr. Badoodle Flimflam". I do not mean shortening academic jargon or other technical terms that mean different things to different readers! Your SOP is supported by the CV and other application materials that can show the committee whether it's Badoodle Flimflam or Zippity FlimFlam. And to be honest, I don't even think it matters because the SOP is about you, not the people you've worked with before. I think having the name there is helpful so that the committee can connect whatever experience/story you're relating in the SOP with other times you mention this work in your CV and elsewhere, and for that, just Dr. Flimflam is good (unless you happened to work with both Badoodle and Zippity!). Similarly, to avoid writing out long names of institutions which don't really matter, you can use other words with more meaning! For example, you can say, "My BSc thesis, with Dr. Flimflam, studied XYZ". Here, you've provided the name (helpful for connecting things) and a key piece of information: this is your undergrad thesis work. I would say it is far more interesting to the admissions committee to know what XYZ was your undergrad thesis work than the location where it was conducted or the academic affiliation of Dr. Flimflam (again, this is a essay about you, not these other places/people). Note that you might have already mentioned the name of your undergrad school elsewhere in the SOP, or they can just look it up on your CV. I would say the main exception to this advice is when you really really want to draw attention to the name of the institution. This is a rare case, and I wouldn't do it to "name-drop" (name dropping is not really that useful in a SOP) but if the school you're applying to happens to have a formal connection with UPF or something, then mentioning that you worked at their partner school or something could be helpful. Finally, when you're short on space, I would try to avoid sentences that have no other purpose than to introduce characters or places. You may be tempted to begin each paragraph describing a research project with something like, "My first/second/BSc/MA/whatever project was with Dr. XYZ at the University of ABC studying DEF." These sentences are going to be skimmed anyways as the reader seeks the meaty content of each paragraph. Instead, just focus on delivering the main message you want to convey about each of your experiences and work the name/location details into them.

Here's a perspective from outside the field regarding grad admissions in general, since there are many things in common between fields! Hope you will find this useful. I would say that the majority of grad schools are not looking for graduate students to solely be an amazing researcher. If they wanted someone that had a strong research track record plus the skills to boot, then they would be hiring a full time research associate or research tech position. Grad schools select candidates that they believe will become great academics with training in their program. This is why grad admissions are often considered holistically. And usually this means that exceptionalism in one area isn't as important. For example, applicants with a 3.95 GPA and a 3.90 GPA are likely to be lumped together---it may be a lot more difficult to earn a 3.95, but it isn't always valued as much. Similarly, scoring 90th percentile vs. 85th percentile isn't going to give you that much of a boost. And in your case, I think your high achievement in your research experience will certainly make you unique and memorable/distinct in the committee's evaluation, but it's not going to mean a lot more than other applicants with publications and decent research experience. That is, I would say that one cannot count on exceptional excellence in one area to make up for what may be missing in other areas. Also, I think it's worth remembering a key difference between applying for graduate programs and applying for a job. For most jobs, the employer is hiring a candidate who already has the qualifications to do what they are looking for. The employer has a need they want fulfilled and they search for the applicant that best fits this need. For most graduate schools though, while the above is still true, grad schools also select candidates based on potential. Incoming students are selected not just because of what they have already accomplished, but what the school thinks they have yet to accomplish under more training and education. So, the potential for great achievement is also valued (in addition to demonstrated ability). I offer this to help put into perspective your disbelief that people with less experience than yours can get into grad school. For academia, I think demonstrated ability is valued but it's not the only thing that matters. Note: Priorities do vary from program to program. Ultimately, the program wants to pick candidate they think will mature into independent and accomplished academics under their education and some places pick candidates that have such strength in one area that they think their program can make up the other areas. For example, my friend had zero research experience but high achievement in every other area of the application got into a highly ranked, research intensive PhD program. The program provided my friend with excellent research training and now they are an award winning researcher at another top university. So the balance does vary from place to place. But I'd say very few places would pick graduate students solely on one single strength. So, my advice for better results in the future would be to seek ways to improve your application profile other than your research ability and experience. I'd say you've likely maxed that out in terms of "diminishing returns". I am not sure from your posts if you have kept any contact with academia in the last 3 years? If not, I think rebuilding these networks would be important. Here's where you can use your excellent research background though. Perhaps your credentials can get you started with a position in a lab at a university (i.e. in academia). Volunteer position is OK but paid position would be better! This time, use the opportunity to do more than just research work. Some schools allow staff scientists to sit in on classes or even take one or two classes per semester. Do that. Make sure your boss knows that you're interested in a PhD program . Consider redoing the tests. Take actions that show an admissions committee (and your letter writers) that you are serious and highly motivated to become a scholar in your field.

I think you have two really good letter writers already so it's not as important if the last letter writer doesn't tick off all of the boxes of professor/academia/knows-your-research. If your field station supervisor has a PhD then I would say this is certainly the right person to have as your 3rd letter writer. If not, your field supervisor may still be better than going back to a prof from undergrad that doesn't know you as well.

It's been several years now since I applied for these awards, but at least from the NSERC side, the CGS-D doesn't limit you to only attend the schools listed. I had to list three schools that I would propose to hold the award at, but I did not have to actually pick from only those three. For the postgraduate awards, the locations are pretty much meaningless since you don't really do anything other than list them. For the NSERC PDF awards, which uses the same forms, the locations must be justified and I think they carry more meaning in the evaluation. However, perhaps you are writing about a specific different award? I read your use of "Tri-Council" to refer to one of the NSERC/SSHRC/CIHR (i.e. the Tri-Council) CGS-D/PGS-D awards, but maybe you specifically meant a completely different with the name of "Tri-Council" ? Also, since my application only required 3 schools to be listed and you're saying 5, perhaps this is a major rule change in more recent years.

The combination of these two strategies worked really well for me. After doing a bunch of questions, you start to see the "logic" behind their exam questions (i.e. what are the concepts they are testing for?) Then when you see the question, you match the question with the concept tested. Usually knowing the concept they are looking for will reveal the approach they want to you take (since it involves using that concept). If you have not already read the exam booklet that gives the background and describes the "rules" of the exam, I would suggest you do that! It gives you deep insight into the mind of the test writer, in my opinion. I took the "old" GRE (just prior to the "Revised" version). I finished the very last question of the quant section with 1 second left! I really hate these types of tests.

I would advise you to not submit things that aren't requested. I can't see how this would be helpful to you. I think the best case scenario is that the committee ignores the extra document and the worst case is that they think you have mistaken their requirements with another school that does require these statements. However, maybe you are asking because there is some specific information in the diversity statement about your academic background that you think the admissions committee would be interested in knowing or would explain something else in your application package. If this is the case, then I think the "additional documents" page is a perfect place to succinctly provide the explanation or additional detail that you wanted to include. I advise against just plopping a diversity statement here because such statements are a response to a prompt and I think submitting an essay responding to an unasked prompt will appear out of place. However, if you need to explain some gaps in your CV or some other special scenario, a few sentences submitted as an extra document might be helpful. For example, one thing a student might put into this extra space might include personal reasons on why they didn't pursue graduate studies right after undergraduate work that they think are relevant enough for the committee to know but not relevant enough to add to their SOP.

While I think the majority of posters on these forums are applicants, there are lots of people that stay and continue to post while students and even after graduation. Some people post about field-specific things in the field-specific forum (like this one), or one of the general forums for grad students, e.g. one of the ones here: https://forum.thegradcafe.com/forum/71-grad-school-life/

There are tons of students all over Canada and the USA who do academic work with english as a second language. So you will not be alone. One student in my cohort at my MSc program was from Quebec and that program was the first time she ever did academic work in English. After giving a presentation one semester, she admitted it was her first time ever presenting science in English! We were all shocked because she sounded very natural. Based on all of your posts in these forums, I don't think you will have any major trouble adjusting to academic work in English. Also, it's good that you are taking English classes now but I'm sorry to hear that they are not challenging enough. When you start your PhD program, there will also be resources available to teach English to ESL students. Depending on where you go and what classes you take, they might also be too "easy" for you. I really do think your English language ability is at the same level or better than most international students in North America. As for funding, you should check with each school because while external awards like Vanier and Trudeau are great, many dept also provide their own funding, either as awards to top students or as compensation for assistantship work. In the US, tuition is really really high so tuition waivers are often awarded to competitive students in return for assistantship work. So, check with each program you're interested in on a case-by-case basis. If you're in doubt, I would apply first and then turn it down if their support is not enough, rather than the other way around. Finally, you mentioned national-level sources of funding in Canada. However, we have provincial level graduate funds too. For example, in Ontario, there is the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS). When I was in Ontario, the award was worth $5000 per semester (max $15,000 per year). I see that you have previously won a SSHRC, which is great. Many Tri-Council (SSHRC, NSERC, CIHR) award winners also win OGS after their Tri-Council awards run out. I know that BC (my home province) also has a similar award program that you apply through your university (so you can't really find information about it online like the Vanier etc.). My point is that there is likely a lot of other funding sources that you can't get to directly before applying---you'll be considered along with your application. Typically, when you get your acceptance letter, it will say how much funding you will get and then you can decide if that's something you can afford.

Is this a Canadian fellowship or a US fellowship? If it's Canadian, then you should have received a T4A. When I had a Canadian fellowship (NSERC), they issued me a T4A. You just have to ensure you code it with the correct income code appearing on your T4A (that tax form is used for a lot of different things). If you are not using tax software, I highly recommend that you do so. The software will determine if your T4A income needs to be included as taxable income based on its source (i.e. the income code). My friends and I have found that many tax accountants in both Canada and the USA are actually quite unfamiliar with the complicated taxes of international students and academic income, so I would trust software to know all of the ins and outs. If this is an American fellowship, then that would be different. I never had employment income while in the US, it was all income specifically marked with the "no services provided" letter. When I called the CRA hotline to ask about whether I needed to provide this on my Box 104, they said that I should not include it if the income was specifically for my education only. By extension, I also did not include my tuition waiver as income. Therefore, I do not think you should include $Y in your Box 104. In your case, since you specifically have employment income, your situation may be different for the $X. However, I am still surprised to hear that you would owe taxes in Canada despite already paying taxes in the USA. Did you also claim the Foreign Tax Credit benefit? It prevents you from being double taxed. For the TL11A, I also got that request the first time I made the claim. I called the CRA to ask what they needed and they just wanted a physical copy of the TL11A form with the school official's signature on it to verify my student status and the amount paid. Since then, I always include the hard copy with my filing and I've never been asked about it again.

In the last year of my PhD, I basically spent almost all of my time in October and November doing job-search related work. I normally work a 40 hour week and during these months, I definitely worked more than that. I talked about this with my advisor during my last summer and generally, in my field, it's expected that your student isn't going to do much research for two months in the fall as they apply for jobs. The remaining few hours that weren't going into job apps were just for maintenance level research (i.e. responding to collaborator questions, preparing for additional data collection, etc.) So I just had to work out with my advisor what they needed me to get done and what I needed to get done for myself.

The other tip that I got from my undergrad mentor when choosing a school or PI after being accepted was to look at the papers that the students of that PI wrote, not just the papers that the PI wrote. This will give you a sense of what level of work/independence/achievement that you as a student could expect to have if you worked with that PI. Of course, you have to be careful and choose a fair sample of students---if you just pick their best students then you cannot expect the same outcome for yourself. However, it will tell you how often the student publishes as first author vs. another author position. If you notice that all the papers coming from a lab/group have the PI as first author and not the student, then that would tell you something. It sounds like this is more common in your field, but it wouldn't be a good sign in my field if the PI was always the first author. In my field, the PI would be first author if it's a giant project that they are leading and the student was recruited to contribute something to the project. But that shouldn't be the student's entire PhD---they should have some first author work of their own too. So, by looking at how often students are first author and how often the PI are first author, it shows you how often the PI lets students take leadership on a new project (in my field). In addition, you can compare the writing across all the papers published by the group. If you notice very similar language in all papers, even those by other students, then you might infer that the PI takes a big role in writing the papers. This is both good and bad---good because it shows the PI actually cares about their students' papers. But if it too prominent, then it might show that the PI takes over the paper writing process and doesn't allow the student to actually contribute to the field. The way I think about the above is that as a grad student you don't want to just be a cog in your group/PI's research machine. You want to become an independent researcher on your own by the time you graduate. But just to stress again---this is best done **after** you have received offers and are now choosing which school and potentially PIs to work with. If your school has rotations, then you will likely learn most of this information during your rotation and talking to other students (in my field, it's a little more important to choose at least one person to work with when you also accept your offer).

Probably depends on the committee and maybe each member of the committee. Could also depend on what each program is looking for each year. And because applicants are generally evaluated holistically, they might scrutinize each transcript differently depending on the rest of your application. For example, a committee may not examine a transcript very carefully if the applicant has an excellent research record and they already have enough information to make a decision. Or, when they are down to the wire between two applicants and they need to accept one and wait-list the other, they might go back and compare minor details side-by-side. Some things the committee may look for: - Overall GPA - GPA in your major - GPA in upper level courses - Trend in GPA over time - What courses did you take (i.e. do you have the right pre-reqs?) - Did you make choices in your coursework that is consistent with what you say your interests are? The last two depends on your school as well. For example, if you are at a SLAC for undergrad that didn't offer a large number of courses in X, the committee isn't going to ding you for having fewer X courses than other applicants. Maybe the 4 upper level courses in X on your transcript are the only 4 upper level X courses offered across the whole school! On the other hand, if you went to an undergrad school with a well known expertise in X, and you say you want to go to grad school to study X, but your transcript shows that you didn't show any interest in courses on X, then that would be a little weird, right?

I think you need to also take these contribution statements with a grain of salt. As you might imagine from the 3 word sentences, there isn't a lot of detail given. In your specific example, I would not be surprised if G didn't actually directly contribute to the scientific work at all. Maybe G was another prof that was added to the paper because G was one of the other authors' advisors. Or maybe the other authors used some analysis or equipment designed by G. On the other hand, it's entirely possible that G supervised the entire thing, along with whoever the last author was. Note that "wrote the paper" could mean something like "proof read a draft" or "wrote one paragraph" or "wrote the entire thing". Also how often do these statements appear in journals from your field? In my field, we only encounter these statements in Nature (or was it Science? Or both?). Anyways, since we rarely use them in our field, you might see astro papers with statements like "All authors contributed equally to the work" since we never really thought about how to divide it up. Or, maybe <advisors> designed experiment, <students> conducted analysis, and all authors contributing to writing the manuscript. My point is that these statements are super generic and they do not really do a good job of specifying the "intensity". Like the writing example above, "analyzed data" could mean someone actually developing protocols/code to analyze data, or maybe they just gave a copy of their code to someone else's student to run. If you want to know what the lab does, look at their lab page. If you want to know what kind of papers the lab produces, look at the work of the lab's students. Students generally work in their advisor's lab the majority of the time. In my field, if the student led the work, the student is the first author and advisor is 2nd author. I know in lab fields, it can be different. One suggestion is to look at the PhD dissertations of recently graduated students from the lab. The papers in there or the techniques described are likely the ones the lab works on.

Hi! In 2011, I took the Physics GRE on a Saturday morning at McMaster. Note that ALL the paper subject tests happen together, so it's not just Psychology (although Psychology students were the largest group by far). You should call ETS to get the building name because Saturday morning means very few people will be around. I second the suggestion to go early. I was there by 7am. When I got to whatever building it was in, the door was locked. Half an hour later, someone came and put up a piece of paper that said the test is now in <other building>. Had to figure out where that was and run over. Luckily there were a couple of other GRE test takers there (a psychology student) and we figured it out together. I also had to travel 2+ hours the night before to get to Hamilton for the test, so that wasn't a fun start to the test. Luckily (?) we actually started almost an hour late so I had lots of time to collect myself.

This depends on a lot of things. Here are two data points. During my 2 year MSc in Canada, I presented at three conferences. The first was May of the first year. The second was the beginning of my 2nd year. The last was in May of my second year (I did two full years for the MSc, defended in August of 2nd year). During my 5 year PhD at a US school, number of presentations which I travelled for: First year: 1 conference presentation Second year: 2 conference presentations Third year: 3 conference presentations, plus a couple at small meetings/conferences hosted at my school Fourth year: 3 conference presentations, plus a couple at small meetings/conferences hosted at my school Fifth year: 2 conferences where I travelled, 1 conference that was in the same city, and 9 presentations at different schools** **It's common in my field for finishing grad students to set up talk tours where they visit places they might want to do postdocs. This is partly because many students apply for national fellowships in postdocs where you apply to a general fund for money (e.g. as you might apply to SSHRC for grad studies) so it's helpful to visit or get "invited" to these places and write up research proposals. I say "invited" because it's very easy to get an official invite if your advisor is paying for you to travel there (usually this means the school just has to cover local costs for you). But there were a couple in there that were actual unsolicited invitations. The conferences I attended were usually the annual meeting for one of the national society for my field each year and then one or two focus conferences that are smaller (60-300 people) specifically focussed on the topic. My advisor and I talked at the beginning of each year on what conferences I should try to go to. Typically, my advisor had money for me to go to 1 overseas conference per year and 2 North American meetings. I also had external funding from Canada (NSERC) for my first 3 years and a NASA fellowship in my last 2 years that also provided $3000/year of research funds in addition to reducing my advisor's cost to pay my stipend, so it was easier to find money for me to travel. Finally, I was at a department that encouraged their students to travel and present research and represent our program. Starting in our 3rd year, we also present at the weekly department seminars once per year and there are many student presentation opportunities on campus to develop and hone our skills. We also often present in group meetings etc, so we get a ton of practice talking about our research. I also volunteer a lot of time to give presentations to local schools or other non-profits in the area.

This comment made me think of something. I wonder how much of the quals process at your department depends on your "performance" at the oral exam stage vs. taking a holistic view of your work throughout the entire grad career thus far. This was something that was very confusing in my own dept as well, until we (the older students) finally convinced the faculty to release more information to the first years about the quals evaluation process (they weren't against releasing it, they just thought everyone already knew). For us, the decision to pass or not pass you is made right after the oral exam stage, however, we learned that the decision is not solely based on the oral exam itself. I think this is good, because some people are better at one-on-one discussions than standing in front of the board talking to a committee than others. Yes, both are important in your academic career, so some minimal level of comfort/confidence in the group setting is necessary. But this means that no one has to feel that everything rides on that 3 hour time slot and nothing you have done leading up to the exam matters.

Indeed, I thought the OP wrote that their advisor is requiring them to pay the costs. Usually grants are in the name of the advisor, so that's why I said (in the ideal-world answer) that the advisor should not be going after the student for the costs---unless the student knowingly broke protocol, the advisor needs to be responsible for actions of their team. In addition, since students generally do not have this type of money lying around, I don't think it is the right thing for the advisor to go after the student, even if the advisor has the right to do so. This is definitely just my subjective opinion because I feel that advisors should be responsible for their students beyond simply being their boss. But that's why I also said (in the practical real-world answer) that seeking further help from others at the school/department is a really good idea. However, if I misunderstood and this was all between the OP and an external agency that granted the money to your school/dept for data collection and the advisor is not involved then that's a different story. If you were a student at my PhD school, my advice would be to seek legal help from your school (probably through the people in charge of grad students). First find out if your school will protect you because you were doing work in your role as a student while on this grant. The other agency should be going after the school, not you directly. But if I still misunderstood and this was due to a grant directly awarded to the OP from the external agency and no money went through the school, then I think it would come down to what the agreement was when you signed and accepted the grant. I think you'd be acting as an individual here and would not have any protections. But you can still seek advice from other at your school on how to best proceed. Sorry for any confusion, didn't realise I made a big assumption reading one of the sentences until Eigen pointed this out.

Oh no, I'm sorry to hear this! It's definitely on the top list of nightmare scenarios To be clear, was the data lost while you were still away, or after you got back? And, were there special requirements to back up this data / store it in a certain way (e.g. were you prevented from using conventional backup methods for some reason or another [policy, confidentiality etc.]) In terms of your question about ethics, that is pretty subjective and hard to answer. So, I'll separate my answer into two parts: what "should" happen and what is practical. First, "ideal world". I would say that as long as you followed all instructions, you should not be financially responsible for any loss or damage in any way. Your advisor should not be able to force you to pay to restore the data. Instead, if the advisor wants to have the data, they need to pay for it to be restored, or they might choose to abandon that data. This might have other ramifications for you, for example, you might need that data to complete your dissertation. However, I would still say it's your advisor's responsibility to either get that data back or assign you to a different dissertation project / change the focus of your research. The analogy is what if a grad student through regular use and following all protocols, had an accident in the lab or broke a piece of machinery. It would not be right for the school or advisor to go after the student for damages. In cases where I do know of accidents happening, the cost has always been absorbed by the advisor or by the department through funds set aside for unforeseen circumstances like this. But a lot of this does depend on whether you were within policy when the data loss happened. Did you and your advisor have expectations laid out in terms of data collection and storage and backup? Were you able to use cloud storage (e.g. Dropbox) as backup devices or did it require special hard drives that you were not given access to? If you were not provided such training or if you did everything you could to have backups but were not able to, then that's a different story! Or, if it was the advisor's responsibility to purchase insurance for the data along with funding your trip, then I would say it is not your fault. On the other hand, I think that if you were trained on how to keep data backed up but failed to do so, then unfortunately, I think it's not the same as the above scenarios where the students followed protocol and something unforeseen happened. Still, unless there is something weird in the funding agreement, typically, it would still be very wrong for the school to make you pay the money to retrieve the data because they paid for your plane ticket. The worst they should be able to do to you (if you are fully responsible for the loss) is to fail you because you were not able to make satisfactory progress on your thesis. Okay, now for more practical, less-idealized advice. I think you should immediately seek help from someone you trust at your school. You should also consider student advocacy groups on campus or something like an ombudsperson. At my PhD school, the Graduate Dean's Office is exactly the right place for this as they would help you navigate the discussion with your advisor on the next steps and/or provide emergency loans/bursaries to help cover costs if you end up choosing to repay. Unfortunately, in the less idealized world, even if you are in the right and/or even if the advisor is acting unethically, there is not too much you can do about it. Ultimately, I think most students end up valuing their ability to finish their program more than this type of expense/cost (even though it is quite steep) and the advisors likely know this. There is also the consideration of what will happen to your relationship with your advisor if you fight them and even if you win, there is still other harm to you and your career. So, I think it is important for you to reach out to people you trust and/or people whose job it is to help students in your situation. See if there is some compromise or solution that can be worked out through discussions. Find out whether or not you would be considered financially responsible for recovering the data. And determine what are valuable to you and what you can afford to lose (e.g. money, progress towards your degree, your status in the degree program, your relationship with your advisor). Something like this probably happened at your school before and it's important to get advice before deciding. Sorry to hear about this, again. Hope you are able to find a way to get it to work out.

Okay, then if you still want to send an email, consider rephrasing the email to something more like: - Introduction with the adjustments - Say that you are specifically interested in their lab because of their work in XYZ - Mention that you read their grant at ABC and hope to be able to ask a few questions (or other wording that switches your tone to one that demands the prof's attention to one that politely requests their time) - Ask good questions that are relevant to your stated interests above and make it clear why you are asking the question (i.e. you would like to be working on XYZ and want to know if there are any opportunities in the lab for XYZ work). That said, this level of questions/information really should be for the accepted student phase (e.g. when you are visiting the school or if you have set up a skype call or something after acceptance). Going into this level of detail to get information and asking for this much of their time is risky, in my opinion. You have very little to gain (there's nothing you need to learn now that you can't wait for afterwards, the SOP would not have so much detail that you need to "interview" a prof before writing it). As others said, there is only a tiny slim chance that this prof is even able to advocate for you (and if you offend them with the questions, then this will backfire). But there is a lot more that could go wrong from asking these questions. I also think that you might be digging too deep for your "fit" section of your SOP. I know you haven't wrote it yet, but you need to also be careful to not give off the impression that you are rigid and only want to do this one exact thing. Unless you know the school is specifically looking for this level of focus, it could hurt you / paint you as closed minded instead of showing that you know your stuff. Personally, I think you should either not send this email. Or, scale it back to really only ask if the lab will continue working in XYZ **if** (and only if) your decision to apply to this school completely depends on this one person's answer. Otherwise, it's better to apply first and ask these questions later. Note that your example of the lab that has changed directions is something you could have found out at the visit stage with no harm to you (and no harm to your SOP either....those shouldn't have that level of detail unless the program specifically wants applicants to set up projects with PIs before applying).

I think it really depends on the situation / environment of your department. So, I would seek advice from someone familiar with how things go in the department, especially if you have a mentor or advisor you can go to. If you are seeking the advice from someone more junior (e.g. another grad student) be sure to try to sit down with at least one professor and get several opinions. Sigaba's path is the best one if you have already signed a contract that locks you into this position for the entire school year (however, some places still sign term-by-term contracts even for year-long courses; an underperforming TA might not be renewed in January, for example). This path is probably also better if all assistantships were treated the same. However, in some departments, research positions are always considered more valuable than teaching positions, especially if the student is not interested in teaching. So, the norm/expectation is that the department would prefer to have everyone in a research position, but since that's not possible due to a lack of availabilities, the students who don't get research positions get slotted into teaching positions instead. Ideally, everyone would at least have a teaching position, though, but not always. If this is the case, I think everyone you talk to, including the prof you're TAing for, would be happy for you that you found a research position and encourage you to join that lab next semester. They will be able to replace TAs easily, either from the student pool or hiring externally if they are in a rare situation where they have funding for more TA spots than students. I have a feeling that you might not be in this type of situation since you said that you specifically competed for this position. However, I guess it's not clear whether there are a limited number of TA spots you competed for, or that everyone would be a TA, and you're just competing for that specific assignment. And given that 10 people wanted one of the 5 spots, it sounds like it would not be too hard for the prof to replace you. The prof that wants to hire you as a TA can also help convince the other prof to "release" you from your TA commitment (i.e. faculty members often trade favours, so the TA prof may be okay with this). But all of this really depends on the culture and how your department runs. Ask around, with discretion, for advice. Normally, I would say if a prof is suggesting that you drop your TAship, it could mean that it's generally okay but you said this is someone new to the department who might also not know about the norms. If there's a culture that encourages/accepts students to move on to new opportunities as they arise then you should be okay to switch over from TA to RA. One may say that doing so might give the impression that you flake on commitments, but if such a "move on" culture exists, then by sticking to a commitment you don't benefit from, it would give the impression that you aren't serious about pursuing research opportunities as they come up. So, it's worth taking a bit of time to seek guidance from faculty in your department.

A small point: In your first sentence you say "I was interested in applying to UNC". Using the past tense makes it sound like you were interested in the past, but not anymore. Just say "I am interested in applying..." or "I will be applying to..." Next, your third sentence says, "I did some work in X so I know a little bit about Y". I would recommend to demonstrate you know Y (instead of just stating that you know Y) via your experience with X. For example, "I worked on X using method Y with Dr. Z at School A" will cover it concisely. Maybe it's just me, but your second paragraph starts a little awkwardly. Maybe this is more normal in your field. But if I was receiving an email like that from a student, I would feel that the student is getting ahead of themselves. There is a gamble though, one could interpret your actions as being very resourceful / enthusiastic etc. But like I said, unless you know how they would react, it's a gamble. I would also provide a word of caution. A prof may have a grant for something but that doesn't mean they are necessarily looking for new students for that project. Maybe it's to fund existing student projects. It might be a little presumptuous to assume that because this grant exists, if you were accepted there that you would be able to work on it. That said, whether you choose to ask about the grant or something else, I think you should rethink the questions you are asking. The one that strikes me as odd is the one where you ask the prof to do a mini lit-review for you and tell you why their work is different from the others. That's something you ask another academic when you have a good reason, such as being their reviewer or if they had made a presentation or pitch to you. It's not the type of question you just ask them out of the blue. It's your own job to read the other papers and figure out why they are different. But more generally, from my point of view, I don't understand the purpose of your questions. If I was a faculty member looking for students and I got this email unsolicited, I might be a little annoyed at the questions that don't seem to lead to anywhere. You might just get a simple reply back with a message encouraging you to apply and to discuss potential research plans with you once you are accepted / started the program. This goes back to what @Eigen said earlier about not really needing to email profs at this stage to see if they are taking students. These detailed questions seem premature. But maybe you have some other reason to ask these questions, in which case, it might be a good idea to actually say this before asking the questions.

Congrats on making it to this stage! I agree with @Sigaba. I would add: 1. Do not retake the written exam when there is no reason to do so. (Yeah this is not anything new to what was said above but I think it's worth repeating). 2. Normally, I would say this is something worth discussing with your advisor. From your most recent post, it sounds like your main advocate is in fact your department head and not your advisor. Perhaps this is something that is different in different fields, or maybe this is something different about your situation. I normally would advise students to discuss the possibility of not passing with their advisor. Usually, the advisor is 100% on their side (or no retake would even be allowed) and in almost all cases, the advisor will hire the student as an assistant for a few months to help transition them out. If something like this is not possible, for whatever reason, then perhaps talking to the dept head could be a good idea, especially given that they seem to be your advocate. Maybe the dept head can have the dept hire you as a TA so that you have some minimal income while you figure out the next steps. If nothing like this is possible, I would say although nothing is guaranteed, I'd advise you to "play to your outs" so to speak. It sounds like your main goal is to stay in this program and finish so I think it makes the most sense to focus on that goal. Applying for jobs takes a lot of time and energy and it's better to succeed at one task than be mediocre at two tasks. You said that you have the means to support yourself for a little while so use that if you need to. That said, I think your dept head has a good point to suggest a January exam date. If you decide that you want to try this route, speak to the dept head again (and check the Grad School policies on exam timings). If the dept head and the policy handbook confirms that you can reschedule to January, then perhaps that is the best route. I would only do this if your committee members have not already been notified of an exam date and if you can ask the dept head to take the lead in this rescheduling (i.e. the decision on the date would be coming from the dept head instead of you). I feel like sure, the Grad School might think you are gaming the system, but this type of scheduling is fairly common in my experience (e.g. some students will prefer to defend in January 2018 instead December 2017 so that their dissertation date is defended in 2018, making them eligible for fellowships that require a PhD within X years last longer instead of being cut short one year.....and alternatively, other students will defend December 2017 instead of January 2018 because they have time limits where they needed to finish in X years!). Since the dept head suggested this first, if they are willing to follow through on it, I'd consider it. Sigaba's point of whether or not you want this looming over you during the holidays is a good one though. Personally, I don't celebrate and I don't travel home during this time (I go in November or January instead, where things are less crowded and flights cheaper) so the holidays has generally been a time for work for me. 3. Don't take it personally that the committee members decided to not meet with you prior to the exam. This might be some policy or agreement they came to while debating whether you should retake. You can also flip it and think about it from another perspective: this way, you will (and the committee will) know that you performed well on your retake exam because you improved as a scholar, not because you got coaching from one of the members. For my quals, we all had two advisors on the committee. There were no rules about communicating with committee members, but one of my advisors said they would not want to discuss the quals exam at all prior to the exam while the other reviewed my presentation with me, asked me some sample questions that they thought I would get etc. This was the case for all the other students with these two advisors---it's not you.

You should do what you feel is best and based on advice from your respective fields. I'll just offer some of my thoughts too. What is missing, to me, from this plan is the part where you discuss your past experience and how it will lead you to succeed in this graduate program. I'd say this would fall under the "fit" category of the FFF model, and a common SOP structure is Fit (your experience), Focus, Fit (their facilities & people), Future. Another common one is Focus, Fit (experience to show why you're a good fit for the focus, then blend to fit in terms of facilities and people) then Future. There's no single magic formula, just illustrating a point. In addition, from the way you framed this SOP, your essay right now sounds like it will be very one-sided. In other words, it sounds like you are offering tons of reasons why you want to be at their program and why it will benefit you, but you should also ensure that you write this SOP to show how you would be a good addition to their department (Note: emphasis on "show"). Now, since you have not started writing yet, you probably would have planned to say this anyways, but sometimes initial mindset can subtly change the way you phrase things. In your outline here, you've only emphasize why you would benefit from the grad program and but that is only one side of the "fit" aspect. The other side is also important: you want to demonstrate that you will succeed in their program and be a PhD student they would be proud to graduate (for adcom members not related to your work) and/or would want to work with (for the members who are related to your application). One last note: like @GreenEyedTrombonist, I had a Masters going into PhD applications, so I spent a fair bit of time/space in my SOP about my past. Probably more than most guidelines, I'd say 2/3 of my SOP was about my history (however, in the spirit of the "fit" criteria). I see that lots of SOP guides now suggest 20% to 40% past and more on the future. I think these are probably better guidelines, but I maintain that there is no magic formula and SOPs are meant to be a little free form. If you can make a compelling argument, then focus on that first instead of trying to twist your essay into a predetermined/generic structure.