TakeruK

Yikes. The shared cost was about $700/month (in a 4-person share), $800/month (2-person share) or $1200/month (single). The market rate for a 1-bedroom is around $1700/month, however, most people choosing to live off-campus will still share, averaging around $700-$900 per person per month if you share a 2+ bedroom place or house. The off-campus unfurnished properties are super popular because we paid $900/month for a 2-bedroom place all to ourselves. Sure, the location isn't ideal and the place was a little run-down, but we were paying less than half of the market rate. We saved that money for the future, where we won't be so lucky to have such a good deal! The rent prices of the city we lived in was so bad that we were actually able to successfully ask the school to raise everyone's stipends (University-wide) by $2000 per year because rent prices were outpacing stipend growth (at that time, the average 1 bedroom rent rose by $400 in 4 years (almost $5000/year) while minimum stipends on campus only went up by $2000. And we were not even in the worst housing market in the US (i.e. not the Bay area).

As you said, this differs from school to school. Here's a data point for you. For my PhD school, the on-campus grad student housing is guaranteed for all first year grad students. I think the cutoff date to save yourself a spot in housing is April 30. There's enough spots for every new grad student, however, most of these spots are in shared living apartments. It's usually 4 bedrooms (for 4 people total) with a shared living room, kitchen, and 2 bathrooms. There are also 2 bedrooms (for 2 people total) with 1 shared bathroom. And there are a small amount of single room units (what you are looking for). These are very limited in number, but since they cost a lot more than the other units, supply and demand are about equal. For 2nd year and above grad students, you can also enter the housing lottery by April 30. After all of the new students are allocated, the remaining spots are granted to the returning grad students on a lottery system. Overall, including the new first years each year, about 1/3 of all grad students on campus are able to live in on-campus grad student housing. These units are especially convenient for your first year because 1) they are fully furnished, 2) utilities and such are all included so you don't need credit to set up (or pay huge deposits) and 3) you know you have a spot so you don't have to worry about signing a lease before you start school. It's also great for international students moving to the US for the first time. Many students will find their own housing for 2nd year and beyond, and it's a lot easier to do so when you're here for about a year. My PhD school also offered off-campus grad student housing. These are generally unfurnished, so it's just like renting except the school is your landlord. Instead of a lottery based system, it's a waitlist system. Every month, available units go out to everyone on the list and there's a few days where you can check out a key and take a look at the place. If you like it, you indicate your interest. The highest ranked person that indicated interest for a particular unit will be offered it---if they change their mind, it goes to the next person on the list. Your rank on the list is determined by the date you signed up for the list. Typically, due to high interest in these places, you will have to be on the list for about a year before you can have a good shot at a unit that opens up. There's also a limit of 2 years living in these properties to ensure everyone gets a chance (the rent in these properties are something like 50% of market rate, so it's very affordable). Like the on-campus options, the utilities are all included so that's convenient. Unlike the on-campus options, it's a monthly rolling placement type of thing, so you can apply at any time. Hope that gives you some useful information about how some schools might conduct their housing for grad students. One thing to note though: my PhD school is a very small school and there are more grad students on campus than undergrads. It's also located in a very expensive place to rent, so there is special emphasis on creating as much housing for graduate students as possible. I know many other schools do not have very many options for grad students at all (with the expectation that we'll live off campus) and/or prioritize their housing for undergrads (at my PhD school, the undergrad population was small enough that about 85% of all undergrads have a spot in on-campus housing, so they are able to have a lot of housing options for both undergrad and grads).

As others said here, I don't think you are in the right in this case. As a Masters (or even a PhD) student, you don't get to choose your research project and your advisor does not have to take your research ideas into consideration when assigning you work to do. Ultimately, it is your advisor's prerogative to assign you to work on whatever he or she wants you to work on, and it's your choice if you want to work for that advisor or not. Keep in mind that for the majority of students, because funding is tied to whatever projects have grants, I would say that the vast majority of students are working on projects that their advisors chose and designed, not the other way around. if an advisor led you to believe that you would be working on X and then suddenly changed it to Y without a good reason, then that wouldn't be good behaviour. In your case, I don't see anything that should have caused you to believe that you get to decide your own project ("no objection" is not the same as "approval"). However, that's not necessarily something that is worthy of a complaint. In addition, there are often lots of good reasons for an advisor to want their student to suddenly switch projects. For example, if a grant proposal didn't get funded, it might mean the advisor needs to pay you out of a different grant and therefore needs you to work on another project. In your case, there is no funding, so other valid reasons for switching may be: 1) priorities in the lab/research group changed due to internal or external pressures, so they need people to work on different things now, or 2) another student is more qualified to work in area X so that might mean some other students get switched to area Y. Just a few examples. So, based on the details here, I'm just saying that what happened to you is normal and acceptable. I don't see any wrongdoing by the professor and I don't see any reason for you to complain. Of course, what you do is your own decision and you don't have to justify it here (e.g. maybe there are more things that you prefer to keep private). But if you are just checking in to see whether something unethical happened or not (this is a good idea since sometimes bad things happen but students just think it's "normal" so bad things continue to happen), I would say that this is a case where there might have been some miscommunication or misunderstanding, but nothing bad happened.

Well, what I mean is to stay longer, get more math/stats courses under your belt and then be competitive for a PhD program. Sure, it will take an extra year, but then you won't have to do a Masters first. During this time, you will likely not need to take a full courseload, so maybe you can also get some research experience in the PhD field. But whether this is actually viable really depends on how much it would cost you to stay for another year or two, whether this would invalidate any scholarships, loan deferrals, etc. If you're at a good in-state undergrad school right now, you might be better off staying than moving to another place for just 1-2 years.

Usually, having publications is not an absolute requirement for graduate school admissions. Many people are admitted without any publications at all. I would also advise against taking the feedback too literally unless you know the feedback was carefully crafted for you. Some things are hard to give good feedback on (e.g. your letters or your essays) so admissions committee may just look at the easiest quantitative thing to point out and say that. This doesn't mean that there are no other things needing improvement. For the publication aspect, you could consider applying to a wider range of schools next year. Some schools won't care about pubs as much. One potentially worrying thing is that looking at your experience, it sounds like you have worked on many projects since your freshman year but still have no publication, not even a co-authored one. Maybe this is normal in your field, but to me, this could be a concern. Even in my field, it's not always possible to complete a publication-worthy project in just one summer since research is unpredictable and things can go wrong. So, my advice is to ensure your application not only say what projects you worked on, but what you accomplished as the result of your work. For example, I supervised one undergrad a few summers ago on a project that didn't result in a publication but answered a very very important question for our future work. (We needed to know if we should try to run future projects with a more time-expensive but more accurate method A instead of continuing with our less accurate but much quicker method B). So, in the letters for this student, we always emphasize the outcome of their work and how their summer work has informed years of future work. So, be sure to do this in your SOP and your CV discussing your own work, as well as talking with your letter writers. Share the feedback from the schools with them and ask them if they would be willing to emphasize the impact of your work even though it was not a publication. I also have some other advice that could help. 1. Remember that admissions is somewhat random/stochastic, so not getting in doesn't really mean it's a judgement of you as a person or a scientist. How many schools did you apply to last year? If it's less than 6, consider applying to a larger number of schools. If you applied to lots of schools, then look at the list again with a mentor (i.e. someone who knows your abilities and interests well) and consider whether the types of schools you're applying to are a good fit. 2. Your sidebar says that you are interested in Ecology or Anthropology. Applying to multiple PhD fields is not that normal unless there is a much closer connection between those two fields than I would expect. Maybe you already did this, but you really have to treat them as two separate applications. Make your Ecology PhD application completely different than your Anthropology application. For point #1 above, this means you should be applying to at least 6 programs in each of these two fields, maybe more. You may also want to have different letter writers. And do not mention that you are also applying to the other program. At some schools, you are not able to apply to 2 PhD programs and/or you must mention them. Unless it is a rare case where the same school is a perfect fit for both programs for you, or unless the school allows multiple program applications without the programs knowing about your other one, I would only apply to one program per school.

Generally, completing a Masters before a PhD does not significantly reduce the length of the PhD program. Whether any PhD program requirements will be waived will depend on each PhD program. I'm not in Statistics, but the range in my field varies from reducing the PhD course requirements between 0-1.5 semesters (i.e 0-0.75 years). However, as you may already know, the part that takes the longest is not the coursework, but the research! Having experience with research in a Masters program can help (e.g. if you do a PhD project closely related to your Masters work, you will already have a lot of the background reading etc. done). A Masters program can also help you adjust to the time management and help you develop valuable research skills that could make your PhD go faster than someone who enters directly from an undergrad degree. That said, in your case, since you will be using a Masters program to help you get caught up in Statistics compared to those who might be entering directly, you may not end up that far ahead of direct-entry students. In your case, I think you potentially have another option. Can you also get a major (or at least a minor) in Statistics, extending the length of your undergrad degree as necessary? I am not sure what your school rules are but in Canada, this is very typical for students who change/alter interests after their 2nd year. It might be cheaper to continue on your BS degree for a 5th and 6th year instead of enrolling as a Masters student. But I know that at some schools, you aren't allowed to stay this long.

This is advice I give to people in my field, but it's pretty general stuff. Fill in the generic terms with relevant things for your field! 1. Determine which general research questions / topics are you interested in pursuing for your PhD. 2. Look through recent annual conferences for your field, usually those run by your society. Search for people presenting abstracts on your answer to #1. 3. Note down all of their names and institutions. Determine if they are faculty or students/postdocs/staff. If they aren't faculty, try to figure out who their advisors are. 4. Also look at the coauthors and do the same. 5. By this time, you should have a giant list and you might notice a lot of repeat names or institutions. 6. If you have preferences in location, ranking, etc. then you might want to sort or filter the list by your preferences. This is also a good time to think about how these schools can help you achieve whatever your career goals are. 7. Maybe you have a good-sized list of schools now, maybe something like 30-50 schools that you would be willing to consider further. Look up each school and read about their program. Is it a right fit for you? Sort/filter/eliminate as necessary. 8. At this point, maybe you have 10-20 schools that you are really interested in based on the program descriptions. Go back to your list from Step 5 and note the names of faculty associated with each of these schools. I'd call this your shortlist. 9. Now, I think it's time to seek advice from others on your shortlist. Talk to your old advisors. Friends/colleagues, etc. They will likely have some insight about some of these people/program that you didn't consider. Or they might tell you about a cool program that you didn't find or had discounted earlier on. Modify your list. 10. If there are grad school fairs or some place where representatives from grad programs will talk to prospective applicants, go to those. Be sure to talk to the schools on your shortlist, but also talk to schools you hadn't considered before in case you learn something cool. In my field, our annual all-astronomy meeting always hosts one of these grad school fair events.

I think it is important to carefully read the solicitation and the program goals. I wouldn't just assume anything based on the program name or the sponsor name. As @Usmivka said, the reviewers of these fellowships aren't necessarily from the organization funding the fellowship. Instead, the organization outlines their goals and purpose for the fellowship and ask the expert evaluators to judge applications based on those criteria. So, read the instructions carefully and ensure your application meets those goals. In addition, note that the instructions may reference other documents that better list program goals. For example, when applying for a NASA fellowship, I saw that the solicitation mentioned some specific NASA programs and I found the documents that described the goals of those programs. I was able to write a fellowship application that shows how my work meets those goals. Finally, do you know anyone in your field that has won an NDSEG? Ask them for a copy of their proposal and/or tips on applying.

Not a formal interview, but I've given "job talks" at places where an audience member is an opponent of an idea/model/theory that I was working on and speaking about. The advice I got was to ensure you show them that you know about their work and that you acknowledge it. Ensure that you aren't presenting your idea/theory/work as the only correct method. I would first present the research question, then talk about how your chosen theory can answer it. Then, say something like, "However, this is still an open question, and Prof X here argues that ...." State why their work is good but then professionally highlight why you would disagree. Don't be afraid to also mention the weaknesses in your chosen theory. I would try to end on some common ground. I think as long as you are open/honest about differing opinions and don't make it personal, it should be okay!

Like the old saying goes, age is just a number. Some profs start winding down around 60, others are still going strong at 75. I wouldn't focus only on age, but instead, talk to the professor and other students and look for a good fit in advising style. From the profs I've interacted with, generally the older the professor gets, the more hands-off their style becomes, but still, that's just a generalization. Focus more on personality and work style fit than age. If you are concerned about retirement plans etc., the best person to talk to is the professor themself. You don't have to ask it directly (although you could). I'm not sure what stage you are asking about, but a good time is after you've been accepted but before you have made a decision. You could then email or speak to the prof and ask something like, "If I attend this school, I would like to finish my PhD with you as my supervisor. Would you be taking on a PhD student this fall?" (and/or you can ask if they have the time/funding to do so etc.). I think this is a good time for the professor to either directly reveal that they plan on retiring or let you know that they might not be able to supervise you throughout your whole degree and work on an alternate plan with you (e.g. co-supervising). When I did my MSc (in Canada), I was planning to go elsewhere for a PhD, and my supervisor and I had a chat at the beginning where he said he would likely retire before I would finish my PhD, but that if I changed my mind and really wanted to stay for a PhD, then he would still meet with me and advise me through retirement (he would just not do the other stuff profs have to do). As his only student, this would have been fine with me if I chose to stay. So, it's all a matter of what you prefer/want. You could potentially ask these questions and have this discussion before applying too, but at this stage, the prof doesn't really know you as well and it might be premature to be making plans without an acceptance offer. Finally, after you are accepted, it's a good idea to talk to other people in the department (usually this happens as students visit to learn more about the city and life as a student there). You will likely be asked who you would want to work with in every conversation. If not, say that you want to work with Prof. X. See if anyone you talk to has any insight on whether there are retirement plans in place. There are also different retirement policies at each school. For example, at my PhD school, profs can retire with short notice, but there is a financial incentive for them to give 4 years notice of retirement. So, other profs would know. At my MSc school, these plans often come up at the department meetings, which has student reps attending, so both students and profs would know. I wouldn't ask another person outright/directly what Prof X plans are, but often mentioning your desire to work with a prof about to retire might result in someone letting you know about potential retirement.

My CV has always been in PDF and I am able to make the links work. Currently, I create my CV using LaTeX and the "hyperref" package allows PDFTeX to compile PDFs with links that work. But I have also created PDFs from Word files where I "Save As" PDF or "Export" as PDF. I think "print to PDF" might be a problem since the "printer" usually does not care about hyperlink info so it might ignore it. However, nowadays, there are much more sophisticated ways to create PDFs without relying on a printer, which would allow for a lot more cool features (e.g. if you want your PDFs to have bookmarks etc.). If you tell us what software you are using to create the content in the first place, maybe someone knows how to create PDFs natively from that software.

I put hyperlinks on my CV, but only to the DOIs/journal webpage/preprint server address of my papers and conference proceedings. I format them so that the hyperlinks appear no different than regular text, so a person printing out my CV will not know there were hyperlinks at all. For a person reading an e-copy, the hyperlinks are still coded as such. Therefore, it is up to each person's e-reader software to decide how to display them. On my PDF reader, all links are surrounded by a coloured rectangular box, and if you mouse over it, the cursors changes from a pointer to a hand. Like fuzzy said, I pick the links to be words that make sense, such as the title of the paper, so these would be natural things a reader might point to or try to click on.

I think your good credit will help. In addition to what fuzzy said, can someone with income/good credit be a guarantor for your lease? I wouldn't necessarily offer it right off the bat, but if they ask for a guarantor, it could help if you have someone who already agreed to be one just in case it's needed.

We just returned to Canada, but while we were in the US, I was a J-1 and my spouse was a J-2 with the work authorization (EAD). Yes, the EAD is good for any job. The work restrictions for the J-1 does not apply to the J-2 (so, a J-2 with EAD has a lot more work options than the J-1, but that makes sense since the reason for the J-1 to be in the US is to pursue studies, not work).

The short answer is yes, most students should always apply to any **major** scholarships and fellowships that they are eligible for. However, keep in mind that it is likely that with every new fellowship you earn, your funding package will be recalculated. For example, when starting my Masters, I was initially accepted with the standard department funding package (in March), which is a full load of TA work, some RA pay and a department fellowship, total was 24k (no tuition waiver in Canada, but tuition is about 6.5k back then). Then, I got a national fellowship (applied in the previous Fall, awarded in April), which was valued at 17.5k, so my funding package changed. My RA offer was removed and my TA load was cut in half. My total pay would be 30k though, so I still ended up with a better package than without the national fellowship. Finally, in May, the department asked me to apply to a University-level fellowship and I was awarded that fellowship in August. The value was $10k, but ultimately, my new funding package was $36k (no tuition waiver still, so take-home pay was about $30k). The adjustment was that all department fellowship monies were removed and then replaced with the University fellowship. So, in the end, my income for my first year came from a national fellowship, a department fellowship, and a half-load of TA work. With my PhD, the policies were a little different. My department had a policy to pay every student the same amount, no matter if they bring in money or not. In 2012, when I started, this number was $29k + tuition waiver. In my last year, this number has now increased to $33k + tuition waiver, to be closer to the national fellowship numbers. When I started, I also had a 3 year fellowship from Canada, valued at 20k USD. This did not change my stipend at all, my school just removed $20k from their offer so I got the same as anyone else. Later, I got a fellowship from the US government and that was valued at 24k USD. Again, my take-home pay remained the same. This year, the same fellowship I had will increase in value, from $24k towards stipend to $35k towards stipend, but that's only an upper limit. Winners of this fellowship will still only get $33k stipend. The only way a student here will get a stipend above the prevailing rate is to win a fellowship that specifically instructs the school to pay the student a stipend above $33k or provides a budget that is meant to go directly to the student above $33k. For example, the most common way is to win the NSF GRFP, which is currently valued at $34k for direct support, so NSF GRFP award winners get an extra $1000 compared to others in my department. Sometimes people have nice fellowships from their home country that pay above this value though, but that's rare. Even in these above cases, where winning more fellowships doesn't make a big change in your stipend, it's a good idea to try to get the major fellowships. There is prestige involved. Lowering your costs to your advisor/department may have fringe benefits. In my case, I was able to ask for a needs-based award in order to pay for some medical costs in my first year that the department said they were willing to help since I cost them less than others. And, my advisor was willing to send me to more conferences / spend more on my computer/travel because they were spending less on my salary. Awards sometimes also come with non-salary benefits. One of mine had a travel budget I could use, which was helpful to pay for myself to visit places to give talks and help my postdoc applications. Others come with societal/network benefits that you can tap into. So, the longer answer is yes, you should apply to more fellowships if you feel that the additional effort to apply is worth it. This is a cost-benefit analysis that needs to be tailored to you, your needs, and your program/field norms. For me, I would apply to 1) university/local fellowships that don't require a ton of effort (e.g. a CV, a research statement, a letter from your advisor), or 2) national-level fellowship that carry a lot of value for my field (at least $10,000) and some sort of prestige/side-benefits etc.

It's up to you want you want to do. But here's another option: Tell your ISS office right now that you had to leave for an emergency and left your I-20 in the US. They should be able to print a new one, sign it, and courier it to you. This will be faster than your friend doing it because it is fewer steps. Also, the fewer times the I-20 has to change hands, the less likely it will be lost. And by telling ISS this right away, they can help you find other solutions that might be possible too.

I think the Silver plan is enough and it's generally the right balance of budget and coverage for most generally healthy people. I don't know the specific requirements off the top of my head so I don't know if Bronze will cover it. Gold and Platinum are good plans too but I would only consider them if you are going to be using the doctor a lot because of pre-existing conditions since the premiums are a lot higher.

@ProfDag: I grabbed a CSS website template from the Internet (with proper attribution, it's one of the publisher's free templates). It sounds more complicated but in reality, with a CSS template, all you need is some basic HTML knowledge. Knowing some CSS (or being able to google for help) is useful if you want to alter the existing template, but otherwise, basic HTML knowledge can get you very far. You just tag each item as a header, body, image, etc and the CSS makes it into the proper style for you. The other website tool I use is Google Analytics, which lets me get data on visitors to the website. It's easy to set up, just include some files in your website directory and a snippet of code to copy and paste into each page. Finally, I host everything on my department's server. My department allows some webspace to each member so I've been doing it this way. This is not ideal for the long term though, since I am likely to be moving more often now and this means my URL will keep changing. I think the free methods as a student is great because of our limited budget and you stay in a place for quite a while as a grad student. And also being linked to your school seems to be more important as a student than as a postdoc or faculty member. Later this year, after I graduate and leave, my plan is to pay for a web hosting service so that I would host my own website.

Wow, I would consider this a huge red flag too. But if the SOP guidelines say to do specific things in each paragraph, then I'd follow the instructions if I were going to apply there. Maybe they get a lot of applications and they just want to be able to scan each paragraph and pick out key phrases (although, if they want to do this, then why even ask for an essay when bullet points would do). Anyways, one question would be whether or not this personal admission counselor is only giving this advice to you/their assigned applicants, or if these are actual application requirements/guidelines.

In my field, LinkedIn is great if you are applying outside of academia. A website is really important for jobs in the field. Like @Eigen, I also notice spikes in my website traffic when I visited departments. Also, during conferences and what I would guess to be at the time of application reviews (I don't know exactly when they happen, but I did see some spikes from the locations I applied to at times that could correspond to the review process).

Second everything fuzzy wrote. If this is a person that you would be able to chat with in the near future (either in person or via Skype) and time is not of the essence, then I wouldn't make the committee request via email. I would still hint at it in the email though, explaining your dissertation work and that you would like to talk with them further about it in person or via Skype or something. After you talk to them, if you still feel like you want them on your committee, then you can invite them to join. If you are asking in person or via Skype, I would suggest that you make the initial information, don't expect them to answer right away (as it could be a lot of work) and instead, tell them that you will send them more information in an email and await their reply. In the email with more information, you should talk to your advisor to find out what responsibilities a committee member has (do they need to attend annual committee meetings, your defense, etc. and does your school pay for these travel?) and let them know. Another good strategy is to check with the Committee Chair or your Advisor first, and then say that they can contact Committee Chair or Advisor for more details if they have questions. In my case, I wanted to invite someone to my committee that was joining the faculty in another department at my school in a few weeks, but I wanted to have my committee meeting in 6 weeks. So, I cold-emailed someone to be on my committee and it worked out. I also intended to work with them on a side project. My initial email was to introduce myself, my interests, and say that I would like to meet with them when they started so that we can work on a project and whether they would like to be on my thesis committee as well (with the relevant info I wrote about above). I didn't know this person directly but we are collaborators-of-collaborators and there is significant overlap in our interests so it made sense to do this. I ran this idea by my advisor of course!

For conferences, I use the affiliation where the work was done. Even after moving to my PhD school, when I presented work from my MS program, I would use my MS affiliation in addition to my PhD affiliation. As for the online academic profiles, you can do whatever you want.

These are very hard to find. In my field, there is only one national level fellowship available to international students, the NASA Earth and Space Sciences Fellowship. However, it does not provide a top-up, it just replaces your stipend (your school may choose to top up in other ways if they want). You need to be at a US school already in a PhD program, so you can't get it in your first year, but you can apply in first year for 2nd year and beyond. Searching online is always something you should do, but such specific information is often hard to find. The best way to learn about these opportunities is to talk to other students and to talk to your advisor. Your advisor has a vested interest in you bringing in external money because it also often means less cost to them. Note: In almost all cases, when you win external awards, your internal funding is adjusted to consider the fact that you have external monies. So, only in very lucky cases will you be able to just keep all of the extra money. Some schools will adjust your funding so that you get a small top-up if you bring in outside money, while other schools will not change your stipend at all. It depends on the source of the outside money, the terms on the outside money and the amount of the outside money relative to your internal funding. For example, the award in my field grants $35,000 per year towards stipend and $10,000 per year for other expenses. The stipend value is listed as "up to $35k for stipend, or the prevailing rate at the school". My school's standard stipend is just below this number, so the award is only made out to the same stipend as everyone else. However, the extra $10k per year goes towards defraying tuition expenses for the advisor ($6k) and for travel and health insurance for the student ($4k). What this means is that although you don't get a higher stipend, you get more money in your pocket because the award pays your share of the insurance premiums. And the extra money for travel (and money saved for your advisor) could mean more money spent on you in other ways.

In most cases, when a student signs an offer letter, even if the letter has financial considerations involved, the student is not legally bound to attend that school. It seems like there are some semantics on what is a "legal contract" that I won't get into because it's not important. Whether or not there is a contract, what is actually important is the terms of the agreement if either party decides to break the contract. In most cases, the answer is nothing. I have never seen an offer agreement that legally requires a student to attend a certain school. That doesn't even make sense---every student can always drop out of their academic program if they want to. The only time I think it really matters is if you have already received the funds for an award or something. Usually these terms are covered in a different agreement than the offer but generally, if you are awarded, say, $5000 for the Sept-December term, and you drop out in October, there are at least 3 possibilities, depending on the terms of the award. Either you will be required to 1) pay back the entire $5000 or 2) pay back a pro-rated award amount for the time you were no longer a student, or 3) pay back nothing (in rare cases). In this case, you do have an obligation---there will be consequences if you decide to not follow through on your end of the agreement. In addition, for things like TA or GA, it is often the case that you do not sign a contract outlining the terms and conditions of your employment until your actual employment begins. For example, at my last school, TAships were contracted positions and every individual appointment is a new contract. So, you might sign an offer letter saying that you are entitled to X dollars of funding as a TA, you only sign a contract when the TA appointment begins (each term, basically). Once that contract is signed, the agreement (at least at my school) is that you will complete X hours of work for Y dollars in pay. For students that left in the middle of a term, they have to pay back all wages paid to them for that TA position because they will not have completed all of the agreed-upon TA hours. I know at least one person that had to do this. On the other hand, if conditions outside of our control prevented us from working (e.g. building flooded, profs go on strike, classes cancelled due to underenrollment), then we will still receive the full pay. All that was just to say that 1) signing an offer letter does not obligate you to attend a school, 2) accepting an award and signing an agreement could pose some obligations and 3) signing a contract for work in return for pay also poses obligations. To @WhyNotGradSchool: I would second @Entangled Phantoms's advice. If you want to attend School B over School A, email School A to tell them that you have changed your mind and would like to withdraw. Then once they confirm it, accept School B's offer. Meanwhile, inform School B that you are withdrawing from School A and will be accepting their offer. If School A is taking a really long time to confirm (they shouldn't, though!), then accept School B.

You don't have to worry about this incident. The only thing you should keep with you is to remember to ensure your citations are correct in the future. Like others said though, I would consider what you did a mistake, not plagiarism. In addition, every school will treat incidents like this differently. If you were in my class and forgot a citation for a sentence, I would probably make the same decision as your TA and just tell you to remember next time. However, even if I did decide to escalate it for whatever reason, the penalty will be very minor. You might lose a tiny percentage of your grade for that essay for a mistake like that (depending on the length of the essay and how critical that sentence is to your work). To me, forgetting a single citation is just a mistake, no different than a spelling mistake or a grammar mistake. In a writing class, it could be a big deal, since the purpose of assigning these essays is to practice your citations / spelling / grammar / writing. But in a non-writing class, I would not even grade for spelling/grammar/citation style unless there are so many mistakes that it makes it hard to read. Finally, your course essays are not public domain. No one else can read what you wrote in your essays and your school is not allowed to release your work to other people. Unless you have submitted it somewhere for publication, no one will see your course work.