TakeruK

Sorry to hear about this situation. I think the PhD Coordinator of X University acted poorly in this case and that would be a huge red flag. However, the CGS resolution is not legally binding and there are no consequences for breaking it. So, unfortunately, there isn't much you can do. In my opinion, when Universities behave poorly like this, the best we can do is "name and shame" so that others know about this bad behaviour. But you will have to be careful about how you to do it so that it doesn't reflect poorly on you or make you liable to libel lawsuits. It might be best to wait until you are more established in your career to do something about it. For more immediate advice, here's what you should do: 1. Don't reply to X University any further. 2. Wait and see what other results you get (perhaps Y University). If you get an offer from another school that is equal to X University or better, then take it. Breathe a sigh of relief that you escaped the terrible situation at X University. Imagine if you had accepted X University earlier on and not realise the people you would be working with! 3. If X University is your only offer in the end, you have a tough decision to make. As the Dept Chair and Director says, the offer is still valid because the school doesn't let them withdraw offers, but if you take it anyways, you are going to be fighting with them the entire time. But at the same time, that admission spot is your right---you've earned it. I would only considering taking the spot if you are able to contact professors in the department and have them on your side. Otherwise, I'm not sure it's worth the fight. In the future, you could write to the CGS to let them know what happened. I'm not sure if anything is actually done, but it could be worth letting people know. You could also write to the Graduate School or other administrative bodies higher up than the Department at X University to let them know. You can write to faculty in that department to let them know. You could write to students, postdocs, staff etc. to let them know. However, doing any of this comes at a risk to you! You're new to the field and being public about this can hurt you. So, you might wait until you are more established and have more protections before you tell your story of what happened at this school. It's up to you.

I don't think this (emphasis added by me) is the right way to think about it. There are tons of other schools that actually fund their PhD students and these schools have no problem funding international students in the first few semesters. I think the school might be using the English test as an excuse to not sound as bad when they don't fund their students. I second the advice to treat an unfunded offer as a rejection. I also would say that 95% funding isn't a myth (unless your field is in a weird place?). However, almost all top schools in their fields receive way more international applicants than they are able to fund because international students cost a lot more than American students. Most schools like TAMU will receive 70%+ of their applicants from international schools but only have spots for like 5 international students. So, they fund the top 5 and to avoid denying anyone a chance who might be able to self-fund, they might offer admission to others that are good. On the other hand, since American students are much cheaper to fund, they likely will fund a lot more American students. Applying to grad school in the US as an international student is hard. There will be lots of rejections and pseuo-rejections (i.e. unfunded offers). I would advise against an unfunded offer, personally!

Regarding the textbook: This is a class project. You're right that the situation is complicated so there's no easy way to put this in your CV. I don't think it fits in the publications section. I also do not think this counts as peer-reviewed. I think if you want to include this in your CV, you would have to be a little creative. How much other science writing do you do? If you blog about science or have done other things you might group together as "outreach" or "science communication" or "science education" then you could include this project with the other stuff. Otherwise, if you already have a section on service/leadership/volunteering, then maybe mention it there. Alternatively, if you have a section on projects, you could list this here too, after any research projects you have. Note: This type of entry is good to have in a CV at the applying to grad school level. But once you are a grad student, I would remove this entry. I don't think it really belongs in an academic CV. It's normal to reflect on your CV and cull old/irrelevant material at each stage of your career. Note #2: If you choose to not put this in your CV now, you should definitely write about it in the your SOP. I personally think this is a better place for this entry than your CV, but it's your choice. Regarding the poster presentation, yes, include it in your poster presentations. But it depends on what you have there so far. If you have like 3 or fewer entries including this 3rd author one, then keep it. Otherwise, I would not include it since having 3 first author posters + 1 3rd author poster is not very different than just 3 first-author posters. Adding that 3rd author poster makes it look like you are trying to CV-pad. Similar to my above note, if you do include this 3rd author poster for now, eventually you will reach a point where you have many first author posters, and there's no longer a need to include non-first author posters. And then later on, you will probably want to limit the number of posters to just 4 or 5 instead of every single poster.

Conferences are certainly the main place you would use them. When I present posters, I just leave a pile near my poster so that people can take a card with my contact info if I'm not there. I don't hand out very many cards though---it's not that common in our field and we generally know how to look each other up online or through our school's directory. Still, a card is handy and makes it easier for someone to reach out. Another instance where I hand out cards are non-academic situations. Business cards are way more common outside of my academic field, and I find myself often handing out cards when meeting people outside of academia. When I visit a school for outreach and the teacher wants to get my contact info. When I meet some random person on the plane and they are interested about my research. When I end up talking to someone representing a funding agency (had no idea these people also attend academic conferences until I ran into one that was just quietly observing everything and started a conversation and then they said what they were doing). These instances make sense too because people outside my field would have a much harder time trying to find my info. And finally, sometimes it's just easier than having to find a piece of paper and a pen to scribble down my email address or my name. I just reach into my wallet and grab a card! That said, I probably have handed out no more than 50 cards since I had them printed (in my 3rd year) and I'm about to graduate, making these cards useless. It's great that your school makes them for free They are pretty cheap though---I like having my own design and it only cost about $15 for the smallest batch of card (250!!). I'll have plenty of extra as keepsakes lol.

This number is published later on, after people have accepted awards. At least, it used to be in previous years. Not for specific committees though, just NSERC-wide, but you can figure the top X% NSERC-wide win awards and translate that to a ranking in your committee as a rough guide. It won't be exact, but even if they published the exact cutoff rank each year, there's going to be noise from year to year anyways.

Sorry, but to be honest, this reasoning isn't a good one. Firstly, let's take the case of a student at a Canadian school who currently has a PGS-D offer. Why would NSERC set it up so that if the student accepts their PGS-D now, they get taken out of the running for the CGS-D? If NSERC wants to upgrade the student, they would do so regardless of whether they have accepted the PGS-D or not. Secondly, it's not that big of a difference to decline a CGS-D or to just have a PGS-D. Just accept your award Congratulations!

These metrics are not quantifiable because they vary from school to school and between admissions committees. My advice is normally to talk to the professors in your department to get their input, but as you said you are not in school now, it certainly makes things a lot harder. I think what you need to help you the most is someone who is in your field and knows you well enough to give you honest and helpful feedback on next steps. The first people you should talk to are your LOR writers. Are any of them faculty members? Talk to those first. If not, other sources are: an academic advisor during your undergrad, other research advisors (faculty, postdocs, senior grad students, mentors). Also, does your undergrad school's alumni association offer any networking or career help events? It is hard to get back into the academic world once you've left it, so if you're not connected to anyone in academia right now, I think it would be important to get plugged back in and get help from someone who knows you.

Hi there! I hope I can be helpful. At the graduate level, getting help for your disability is more than just getting accommodations. Instead, it is a combination of setting you up with the resources and support you need to succeed, in addition to accommodations where necessary. I would view accommodations as a last resort, or a reactionary stopgap solution when things don't go as planned, rather than the main source of support. The type of resources and support depend on what's actually available at each school. So I will write the following as if you were a fellow student at my school because I know what my school offers. I hope it can help you find equivalent resources at your school. So, if you were a colleague in my department, at my school, the first place I would suggest is the campus' counseling center. You will be able to talk to someone almost right away and you'll have a quick conversation that will help them direct you to the right person for help. There are a few on-campus counselors that you could talk to on a weekly or every other week basis, but they might also refer you to a therapist outside of campus. Since there are limited number of counselors on staff, most students who need to see someone on a regular basis are referred elsewhere. These visits are covered under our student health insurance---the first 25 visits per year are free (whether on-campus or off-campus) and then it's $15 copay per visit after the first 25. Whether you see someone on campus or off campus, their role will be to help you manage your disability. They will teach you tools you can use to manage your time and procrastination. Maybe you have done this. They can also help you find a strategy to talk to your advisor about your disability. It will be helpful for your advisor to have a heads-up so that if you do need an accommodation of some kind, your advisor knows what's going on and can back you up. Eventually, you will want to talk to your advisor about strategies on how to ensure you are going to be able to work at your full potential. For example, you said that you need to have a paper and pen with you when you meet your advisor. If your advisor knows this, they would know to not hold spontaneous meetings if they run into you in the hall or at the campus coffee shop etc. Or if you have difficulty concentrating in loud places, having your advisor know this might encourage them not to have a group meeting in a coffee shop, for example. There are lots of other little things that is worth talking to your advisor about regarding work habits. This is true for people with disabilities or without them. For example, some people like having their weekly meeting on Mondays so that it sets up them up with tasks for the week. Others prefer Fridays so that they can report what they've done and reflect on what to do next over the weekend. Some like mornings and others like afternoons. So asking your advisor to do things like schedule meetings in advance, or allow you to go grab your notebook if they see you in the hallway and want to chat, or ensuring you have a quiet place to talk, or giving you tasks in writing (or going slowly enough so that you can write them down) etc. are all fine things to discuss. But if you don't bring it up, then even the most well meaning advisors might not think of it. Most people tend to think others function in the same way as themselves! It's also good that you are thinking about long term things like comps, talks, quals etc. You can come up with a strategy for handling this with your therapist and your advisor. Seek your advisor's advice on how much to include other faculty members (dept. chair, for example) in on this. It could be telling them nothing. If you are worried about procrastination, talk to your advisor about it. Schedule regular check-ins. When I advise students with time management issues, I will often schedule deadlines (in consultation with the student) ahead of time. For example, maybe set a deadline for an outline of your talk, then another one to go over the slides with your advisor, then another one to give a practice talk to a small group of people, etc. This way, it's not the night before the conference and you have to do everything.

Definitely this. I was assuming that this is like one of those books in my field where each chapter has its own list of authors and you're one of them. Also, I was going to make a similar comment regarding peer-review: most CVs have separate publication sections delineating peer reviewed work and non peer reviewed work. In my field, actual peer review usually involves a process where a referee makes comments about your work to the editor and you have to address them. If someone just looked it over before approving it, then it doesn't count as peer review in my field (often published conference proceedings are in this second case: someone reads it over quickly to ensure that everything is in order, but it's still a non-reviewed publication). If you are not actually listed as an author of this chapter, but you helped out in some other role, then list that other role. For example, if you contributed to it as part of your class final project, then list that. Or, if you contributed it to as part of a summer research program, then list it as a bullet point there, for example.

As you point out, no, Canadian schools are not part of the CGS resolution because the CGS is an American entity. The best way to ask is by email because you want a written response to prove that you have an extension. If you prefer to ask by phone, do so by phone but then at the end of the call, ask for an email to confirm the extension. (Or, email them to ask for confirmation of your phone call). You should ask the person that made the offer to you / the person who you are supposed to give your decision to. Even if they are not the one that is able to grant the extension, they will forward it to the right person. That said, when are your visits to this Canadian school and the last US school? You should not ask for additional time beyond 1-2 days after your visit. That is, there is no need to ask for an extension to the 15th if you are visiting the schools this week. At this late stage in the game, you should have everything already ranked and you just need to visit these last 2 programs to slot them in. On that note, if you have more than one acceptance right now, it would be the right time to decline all but your top choice---unless you have a complex situation where you don't know your first choice as it depends on other factors (e.g. you are applying with a significant other).

Are you being paid a stipend / research assistantship during the summer? If so, then this is basically like a job. So you can only take time off in the summer if you have vacation time. Usually, this is about 2 weeks of vacation time, so what your advisor is saying sounds reasonable. However, if you want more time off, maybe you can talk to your advisor and work something out. Maybe you can take a leave of absence, suspend your pay and student status and take time off. Or maybe you can come to an agreement to make up the extra 2 weeks of work hours in order to take the whole month off (especially since you are traveling so far away). In my field, the norm is 40 hours per week, so if you work one extra weekend day every week for 10 weeks, you would make up the equivalent of 2 extra weeks off. Sometimes my friends from far away countries will work during the Christmas break for example, to earn an extra week of vacation in the summer. But a lot of this depends on your advisor too---some advisors don't really care how much time you take off as long as you get your work done. Some advisors expect you to work 10-12 hours per day but are more generous with vacation time etc. Of course, the above doesn't really apply if you aren't being paid or granted credit for research work in the summer in any way. In that case, your advisor might not have any good reason to limit you so you might want to tell your advisor that you insist on taking a month off. But be careful with this and make sure that you are actually in the right. And remember that even if you are right, it could affect how your letter of reference turns out. However, since you are asking your advisor about time off, it sounds like there is perhaps some obligation for you to stay (funding, research credit, etc.)

Sorry, I am totally unqualified to answer this question The OP wrote about STEM fields so that's why I steered my response in that direction. I think Canada actually has more public funding for the humanities than the US (for example, there is no equivalent to SSHRC in the United States). But other than that, no idea! Sorry if it wasn't clear, but when I wrote that my main goal was to "achieve the best training possible for my career", I didn't mean academia only---I was including non-academic careers too (in my field, not too much industry but there are plenty of non-academic jobs for people with PhDs in my field). So, another reason I applied to top US schools was to have the fancy brand name on my degree. The school I'm at now is a very well known school by employers that might hire me. In fact, this was part of my decision making process---I chose my school (an internationally recognized school that is also a top 10 in my field) instead of another school that was a top 5 school in my field, but not very well known in general (a typical state school that just happens to be one of the very best in my field). So, the duplication of classes isn't helpful but the amount of wasted time is actually quite low. You can just make the minimum acceptable (not the minimum passing) grade in those classes. I think I spent about 270 hours total in duplicated classes, including homework, reading, attending lectures, studying etc. (3 courses x 9 hours per week x 10 weeks). A typical work year is about 2000 hours, so this is like 10% of one year. Or, if we say our time is wroth something like $20-$30 per hour, this is around $6000-$9000. The wasted time is a bigger one. It would probably take at least one extra year to go to a school in the US. For my field, if you go into non-academic route, starting salaries after a PhD can be in the $90,000 to $120,000 range. But, this is for US positions. Since I've been away for awhile, I'm not sure what the Canadian market for equivalent jobs would be like. So I guess this is more of a gamble because if you graduated one year earlier, you would have like $100,000 more (plus time towards promotion etc.) But with a top US PhD, you might make even more money and earn that back faster. Or, maybe you won't be able to get such a great job right away from a lower tier school. But at the same time, you are not guaranteed a job with a top tier PhD either. Personally, I felt the extra year was worth it because a top tier PhD opens up both academic and non-academic options for me. I also think the placement rates for my PhD school are much better than the Canadian school I would have chosen (Toronto). But yeah, this is a tough thing to evaluate and I don't know how to give you any better advice than to tell you about my process and hope that you find it helpful. Good luck on making the best choice for you

If you are applying to research graduate programs and PhDs, all letters should come from professors. There are some exceptions, for example if you've been out of school for awhile and you are doing research work or work related to your field, having your current employer write a letter might be okay. Otherwise, the LORs for grad schools are very different than those for any other job---you want letters to speak about your academic and research potential specifically, not the general "X is a hard worker" or "X is a good person" type letter. For a PhD in my field, I would say that the following things are important, in rough order. I list the criteria first and then what the committee might use to evaluate the criteria: 1. Research work experience: LORs, CV**, statement of purpose, earned research positions 2. Academic achievement: Transcripts/GPAs, LORs, statement of purpose, GREs/test scores 3. Research/career goals: statement of purpose, LORs 4. Factors outside of your control: which profs have openings, how much funding available for American/international students, how many other people applying for the same subfield as you Finally, all the first three categories are going to be "weighted" based on your background/undergrad experience. If you are at a top school that provides tons of research opportunities for their undergrads but you only have one summer REU or REU-like experience, then it might be weird. However, if you are at a smaller non-research school but you were able to win a competitive REU (or REU-like) position for even just one summer, that would mean a lot more. Similarly, because different schools have different grading schemes, your GPA is evaluated with the rigor of your undergrad school in mind. **Note: Things like publications and presentations are included in "CV" in my list because that's where you would mention them

All three of your programs sound like great programs. I can see why you have a hard decision because they actually read very similar to me from an outsider's perspective. For Program #3, I think it's best to go elsewhere since you have been in this area for so long, however, having your family and other support nearby is also nice. Having this kind of support can really help you get through tough times and help you be more productive. However, it could count against you when you apply for jobs to not have a diversity of experience. I think rankings don't really matter when you are listing top 10 schools. I think advisor fit is the most important, and School 1 wins there. I think stipend is also important (as long as it's enough that you don't have to stress about it) so School 1 wins again. Happiness with the city and program also necessary for me and School 1 wins again. It's also nice that school 1 only has 30 hours of required coursework. One thing you didn't mention is source of funding: which schools would require you to do a lot of work for money that don't help your degree (e.g. TA, RAships in other labs). Also, which schools will have the most resources available for you? I picked my school because they would have tons of money to buy me the research things I needed and to send me to conferences and other travel important to my career. I am guessing since all 3 are top schools, they would have plenty of money for research, but it's good to consider. But honestly, it sounds like School 1 is the best for you as long as you can make the 12+ travel time from family work. School 2 doesn't sound like it's worth it because it's still far from family but doesn't get you as much advantages as School 1. So if it were me, it would be down to School 1 vs. School 3, and the decision would depend on career goals. If an academic TT is the thing you want the most, School 1 definitely. If you are happier being closer to family and aren't aiming to be the most competitive PhD candidate ever, then School 3.

Hello! I applied to US PhD programs with a Canadian Masters and I had many of the same questions as you. I am about to finish my US PhD program now! Here are the answers to your questions: Time to degree: It is pretty unlikely that you will be able to significantly reduce the time of your PhD in the United States. As you know, most US programs is a 5.5-6 year direct PhD program and having a Masters degree, from Canada or from anywhere else, will not change that. That said, there are students in the STEM fields in the US that finish faster than 5.5-6 years, however, it has nothing to do with a Masters degree---they would have finished quickly no matter what. In my department about half of us finish in 5 years and the other half finish in 6 years. I'm 2 months from graduation, and I started my PhD 5 years ago. There are a few students in my department that finish in 3.5 or even 4 years and they don't have Masters degrees---they either were just really productive and finished early or there was a postdoc lined up for them (for those who want to finish early, typically having a postdoc already lined up helps you convince your committee that you're ready to move on). Course requirements: This depends a lot on the school. At my current school, the course requirements are pretty low. The requirement is 11 quarter-length courses (3 quarters per year, this is equivalent to 6-7 semester-length courses in Canada). My school does not grant credit for any courses taken prior to the PhD program. However, if you did take an equivalent course then you can use it as a pre-requisite to take a more advanced version of the same course if you want. That is, you won't have to repeat any courses but you still need to take the same number of courses. There is one exception: my PhD field is multidisciplinary (people come in with a range of degrees, from Geology to Math to Physics to Chemistry) and there are 1 or 2 "fundamental" courses (e.g. Introduction to Geology). If you have the equivalent at the undergrad or graduate level, then you can skip that course (you won't get credit but that requirement will be removed for you). At another school, there were 11 semester-length classes that takes 2 years to complete. They don't grant credit for Masters courses, however, after the first year, you can choose to challenge the qualifying exam if you want. So, if you happen to already know the material in the 2nd year courses, you can basically skip them if you can pass the exam. This doesn't sound like a very good way to go though. At yet another school, there were 16 (!!) semester length classes over 2 years. This school requires a PhD-major and a PhD-minor (4 classes). If you have a Masters degree, they will waive your minor requirement, so it's only 12 semester length classes. Finally, one last school I considered has no official class requirements. Instead, in the first month, you meet with a tracking committee and they put together a course list for you based on your past experience and your research goals. In every case though, your Masters thesis will not count for anything. There is no "Masters thesis" requirement in US PhD programs so there's nothing it can count for. Switching fields: My BSc and MSc degrees were in Astronomy. For almost all of the example schools listed above, they were Astronomy PhD programs. However, for the school I actually chose, the program is in Planetary Science, which is in the Geology/Earth science side, so my field is actually different (since you asked). Because my previous Masters was in Astronomy, my US school granted me a Masters in Planetary Science after I met the Masters degree requirements. Many US schools do allow you to get a "Masters along the way" (but it depends on the school and the program, other fields, such as Chemistry, do not do this at my school). So I have 2 Masters degrees! But if I were enrolled in the Astronomy PhD program at my school, I would not have been able to get a Masters degree form my current school as they will not grant a degree that you already hold. International student status: There are two main reasons why international students have a harder time applying to US schools. 1) US profs don't recognize the prestige/name/quality of your undergrad program. This obviously isn't a problem if you are applying from the top schools in your country, such as UBC/Toronto/McGill in Canada, or say, Oxford, Cambridge, ETH Zurich, MPIA, etc. (whatever is well known internationally in your field). But if you are applying from a second-tier international school, profs might not recognize it as such compared to an American applying from a second-tier US school. Also, the difference in school systems internationally can be confusing. This is generally not an issue for Canadians. 2) International students cost way way more than American students at public universities. For example, at UC Berkeley, an international student tuition costs about $50,000 per year. An American costs under $20,000 per year. It will cost the department 2.5x times more money to pay for an international student than an American student. So, there are fewer spots for international students and thus it is more competitive. You see it reflected in the numbers: Only 10% of UC Berkeley grad students are international even though more than half of all applicants are international(!). These numbers are the same for big state schools across the US (some schools, like Wisconsin boasts "one of the highest international student population in the country" and they have just under 12%). However, at private US schools, all students cost a ton of money, no matter their status. I'm at a private school right now and tuition is about $43,000 per year for everyone, Americans and internationals. As such, everyone is treated the same. About 47% of our current graduate population are international students. The second point is a much bigger deal for Canadians than the first point. Summary thoughts: When I was applying to US schools, I was also trying to finish as quickly as possible. I was really focused on finding programs that I could finish in 4 years. In hindsight, some of this focus on finishing early was a mistake. When I graduate this year, I will have spent 7 years in grad school in total (2 years MSc, 5 years PhD). The program I did choose did offer the possibility of 4 years (the minimum time is 3 years) and at first, I started with this goal in mind. But then, after a year in the program, I realised that there is no reason to rush to finish in 4 years. My school is one of the top programs in the world in my field and I benefited a lot from all the resources and facilities available to me. Even though I am a little older than all of my peers since I took 5 years to finish my undergrad since I did a co-op program (so I am 3 years older than every student that started with me), I don't feel that old. I will be receiving my PhD a month before I turn 30. But in the end, I only spent 1 year more in grad school than I would if I had stayed in Canada. My opinion is that for some fields (such as mine), the US PhD programs are just so much better than what Canada could offer. When I look at profs in my field in Canada, they almost all have US PhDs (or significant time in the US as postdocs). The amount of resources and support I have at my disposal at my top school in the US was unimaginable when I was at Canadian schools. I will be returning to Canada this summer for a postdoc fellowship position and I am sure that the extra quality of my US program helped me win this position. So I think the extra year is well worth it. The slight change of subfield also helped justify (to me) the additional coursework. Finally, some tips for someone like me searching for a US PhD program: 1. I only applied to US programs that were better than any program in Canada. The top programs in Canada were my backup plans and I applied mostly to US private schools or top public schools (e.g UC Berkeley in my field). I applied to top private schools because of the funding reason I wrote above. I ended up getting accepted to many top private programs but rejected from "less competitive" public programs! 2. I looked for school that had a strong focus on research rather than coursework. I really wanted to avoid a 6 year PhD program that typically gets you to do 2 years of coursework and 4 years of research. I wanted an experience more like Canada where you start research as soon as you begin. This was a big factor in choosing the program that I did. One sign of such a program is an earlier qualifying exam. The timing of the exam signals the end of the majority of coursework. Mine was at the end of the first year. Many other programs had them at the end of year 2. 3. Keep an open mind about degree timing and instead search for the best experience you can get during the application stage. For something like the last paragraph, you'd decide this after you get offers and are choosing which school to go to. Again, I really think the very best US programs are an order of magnitude better than the top Canadian programs, and it's well worth the extra year or two. Of course, this all depends on what your goals are. I'm assuming that your main goal is like mine: achieve the best training possible for my career but also considering the cost of time and personal comfort (moving countries etc.). This is why I only applied to the best US programs, I didn't feel like it was worth the extra time plus the stress of moving to the US if it was not for the best schools and access to training I can't get in Canada. It sounds like there are a lot of parallels between your situation and my experience, so I'd be happy to discuss this more if you have more questions too!

As you know, in Canada, you always have to apply to a PhD program after a MA anyways. So if you took the "safe" offer, keep in mind that you are basically taking a second MA offer with the potential to fast-track to a PhD path. Your ability to get into their PhD program would really depend on your performance in the first year, but at the same time, if you went into any direct PhD program in the US, for example, the first 2 years would be like a Canadian Masters and you would still have to pass a qualifying exam to continue in the department. So, I wouldn't really take the "safe offer" conditions into account because no matter where you go for your PhD, you will have to pass/reach some standard. Instead, the real question is what you mention at the end: will a PhD from the "safe" option be enough for you to reach your career goals? Or do you need a PhD from a more prestigious place? The following is just my opinion based on what my own priorities and goals are, so they might not necessarily fit you but I hope hearing different perspectives help you find out what you want: My opinion is that if If I need a "better" PhD to get what I want in my career, then I would only aim for that. There's no point attending the safe school if it's not going to get me to where I want to be. That is, I'm not going to get a PhD just for the sake of getting a PhD. I would be better off in a different career path outside of academia/things that require a PhD if I could not get into a program that will advance me towards my goals. ---- So, I feel like it's a personal decision you have to make. One thing to keep in mind: you can start at this "safe" program and apply to other direct-PhD programs this fall. Since you are applying at the start of the new program, you don't really need letters or anything from your Sociology program. However, this is risky because you will likely get letters from your PoliSci department and professors will talk to each other. So, if you feel comfortable telling your new Sociology program that you are also applying to other PhD programs, I would go ahead and do that. I think they must understand, because they are not promising you a spot in their PhD program---officially you are only accepted to their Masters program so you have the freedom to consider other places for PhD. I feel that since they are making you compete for a PhD spot, you have the right to look elsewhere as well. Just my opinion.

I'm not sure what you are asking / how you are structuring your CV. Usually, people list their publications without any "title". You would cite your contribution the same way you would cite a chapter in a book, using your field's standard reference/bibliography style. Typically, it will be something like: Author1 Name, Author2 Name, "Chapter title" in "Book name", eds. Editor Names, publisher, etc.

There is a maximum number of hours you are allowed to work while on a CGS-M. In the Award Holder's Guide (http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Students-Etudiants/Guides-Guides/TriRTA-TriBFR_eng.asp), the matter of outside employment it says that the CGS-M doesn't place any restrictions but: 1. institutional guidelines must be followed, and 2. award holders must devote full-time hours (as defined by the school) to the research or studies that they are funded for So, you should check with your school, but I think most schools will not allow you to work on a co-op and also be paid for your CGS-M too.

Glad to be helpful. If it also helps to add: every university is different. I've been at 3 different schools and submitted reimbursement requests for many others that I have not attended/worked at and those are different too. Some schools require very detailed information like itemized receipts while others are happy with just a per-diem! So I wouldn't say that asking for a lot of details means they are trying to avoid paying it, but the people asking you for the details are just doing their job and following school policy. Hope it works out!

Schools are used to reimbursing people that don't attend their program. As long as you have it in writing that they will reimburse you, then it should not affect things. You don't have to say, but it might help to answer: What do you mean by "reluctant to refund [you] the money". Are they saying that they don't want to do it? Or is the process just slow? For a point of reference, you should expect reimbursements to take up to 3 months** to finish, especially if you are not a current student or employee there (so even if you accept their offer, it won't make things any faster since you won't be a student there until the fall). (** Note: 3 months is an extreme case: my slowest reimbursement came in May for a February visit. 2 months (8 weeks) is more normal. One school did not even start the reimbursement process until 1 month after my visit because they had such a big backlog of other requests.) So, if they had already said they will reimburse you, then you shouldn't have to worry about your decision affecting this.

Oh okay, I misunderstood what you meant by "normative time to degree". I had thought you meant this is the typical time towards your degree that your dept will allow without requiring special permission (or with full funding), i.e. a "degree milestone clock". So I thought that if your dept's normative time to degree was 6 years, when you said you won't "get to add a year to the normative time", I thought you meant taking the 2nd year away means you might fall a year behind in progress but still be expected to defend and graduate after 6 years! As for the pay statement, I meant that if the 2nd year abroad doesn't help your job prospects (i.e. a tangential side project) and if it would take longer to finish degree with the 2nd year abroad, then you basically have two options (example numbers): 1. Finish degree in 6 years without doing the side project. 2. Take 7 years to finish degree because of the side project. Option 1 means you could do the side project (or something else) later, when you're paid as a postdoc or other research position. Option 2 means you spend another year at grad student level pay without long term career benefits. Anyways, with the new information: If I were to make this choice for myself, I would have to choose whether I value the marginal increase in career benefit of doing the 2nd year abroad vs. the personal costs. Being away from your department for a 2nd year isn't likely to really hurt much academically (or it seems like the extra benefit from the year abroad would outweigh that). So, my advice (I'm in a different field so take it with a grain of salt!) would be to make the decision that you think is personally best for you, based on what your life priorities/values are.

Will the research you do on these grants be part of your dissertation? If so, then I don't think you need to worry about not getting an extra year, right? Since you'll be progressing towards your degree whether or not you are here or abroad. If this research is not going to count towards your dissertation, then does this mean you will have less time to complete your dissertation? In this case, it's up to you to decide whether this side project is worth the time you spend on it. Basically, by doing a side project as a grad student, you are extending the time you're being underpaid**. So if I had the similar choice, I would ask myself: Does this project help me get a good postdoc (or whatever my next career goal is)? If so, then it might be worth it. If not, then I wouldn't do it---you can try to do it later while paid as an actual researcher. (**By "underpaid", I know that some might argue that while our salaries are low, the value we get from our degree is still worth it. Even if you accept that reasoning, if this side project is not helping you towards your degree, but you are still being paid as a grad student, then the work is still underpaid work!)

Glad to hear that things are not in the worst possible case for you!

I agree with fuzzylogician that you need to find out more information at this meeting. Typically, the only reason to not renew someone's assistantship is unsatisfactory performance (as almost every grad assistantship is only renewable subject to satisfactory performance). In my opinion, "satisfactory performance" should mean "minimum required to advance to the next year of graduate school" because I think it's not ethical to keep students on without funding. So, you should be prepared for to consider that they might also ask you to leave at this upcoming meeting. Alternatively, they might say that you are on "probation" so they will give you another chance but without funding. I'm not saying that this will happen at the meeting, but since it sucks to have the news broken to you by the profs completely out of the blue, it might help to be prepared for this scenario. You ask whether you could appeal and that will depend on the reason they give for non-renewal at this meeting. If it's something like "sorry, we're out of money" or "sorry we changed our mind" then you need to find as much written proof of the 2-year promise as you can and appeal through that channel. If it's because of performance, then you should ask about an appeals process for that evaluation. You should collect as much evidence for performance, both from your students but also in your own graduate coursework. Look up the degree requirements and show that you have met the ones that needed to be met by this year and that you are on track for finishing all requirements before the end of your program. Finally, my advice would be that you might want to look up all of these things for these two potential cases, but it might be better to not argue/appeal the decision right then and there. Instead, at the meeting, you should say that you do not agree with their evaluation and that you would like to appeal the decision and ask how to do that. This will go better as both you and the professors will have time to prepare and reach a fair conclusion.

I think I might have said something about this to you at another time. But to answer your question the way you phrase it: no, generally it doesn't directly affect your ability to get into a good PhD program if you don't have the CGS-M or something like that. The reason why I might say yes to the second part of your question is that highly competitive positions like tenure-tracked professors only go to the top few percent of applicants. There are dozens more PhDs created than there are tenure-track position openings. Generally, prestigious awards at the doctoral and post-doctoral level goes to the top 10% or the top 15% or so. So, to me, not winning a prestigious award like this at the postdoc level tells you that you are likely not in the top tier of applicants. So it's not that a lack of these awards will hurt you in the professor job competition, but it is a signal that there are many others that will rank above you. I wouldn't worry about it at your stage now though. First, these awards are a little random. Not getting one could mean that you were in the top 15% but just somehow missed the cutoffs or based on how the evaluator was feeling (or it could mean you were in the bottom half---hard to tell). Also, at this early stage, not winning it once is not a big deal. I think though, continually missing out on all the top tier awards every single year is one sign you can use to determine whether or not you think you are a top tier candidate. Secondly, even if you are not a top tier candidate now, at the Masters level, it doesn't mean much because people still change and grow a lot as scholars during grad school. So, don't treat award decisions like they are sealing your fate.