TakeruK

Group interviews are common. You will likely be interviewed with a panel from the admissions committee rather than the profs that you specifically mentioned, but it might be a mix! I've been on the interviewing and the interviewed side of these telecon group interviews. Here are some tips for panel/group interviews. 1. It will most likely begin with people introducing themselves. Have a pen and paper ready as soon as you start the call so that you can write down their names. 2. You are likely going to be projected over a speakerphone on the other side. These things are sometimes static-y, so speak slowly and clearly. Also, speak loudly because while they can turn up the volume on these speakers, when they do, it will make the static louder too. I don't know how you normally speak into the phone but if you are sitting at desk, speak as if you were talking to a person on the other side of the desk, instead of how one might talk to a friend on a phone. 3. Similarly, the group will be speaking into a mic on a table and if a person is sitting further away, they might be quieter. Don't be afraid to ask them to repeat something if you didn't hear it clearly. 4. The group might take turns asking you questions from a predetermined list but others may interject with followup questions based on your answers. When you answer a question, answer it for the whole group, not just the person who is asking. 5. Interviewers will be writing down your answers and making notes as you speak. They might be a little silent after you finish speaking as they finish their notes. Don't be alarmed! In all of my interviews, they always started with this (and when I was on the interviewing panel, we always said this too).

I can understand why you feel it was disconcerting but I can also tell you why they asked you! Maybe this will put things in perspective and it might make you feel better. I do not think your POI sent an inappropriate email at all (but maybe the tone of it wasn't great if it is causing you concerns!) Let's say that they already made 10 offers to candidates ranked #1 to #10. Maybe you are #2 on their list or something. They want to know if you have already decided because if you are already set on Program B, they would like to know ASAP so that they can make an offer to #11. If you wait 6 weeks later and then tell them, they might miss out on #11 since #11 probably would have taken an offer elsewhere. So, they want to check with you to see if you are still interested. If you are, they obviously prefer you over #11 so they would be glad to have you! They are just checking in case you're already certain to turn them down, this gives them a chance to pursue #11. This is why they say they support your decision either way. Therefore, you should tell them that you are equally interested in Program A and Program B at this stage. Reinforce this by saying a few things that show your interest in Program A. Tell them that you will make your decision after you are able to visit Program B. Don't worry too much about the impression you left them. People do mostly understand that visiting students are often jet lagged and overwhelmed with information. We just finished hosting admitted students this week and we certainly understood that some people are more expressive than others. We also know that people who are really quiet during visit week can turn out to be some of the most sociable and outgoing people when they arrive! However, if you want to learn from this experience, it is helpful to remind yourself in the future to keep the focus on the program you are visiting. Even if you are asked about other programs, keep the focus on the positives of the program you are visiting. Redirection the conversation. You don't need to lie. But you also don't have to go on and on about other programs! You may be visiting schools and such for postdoc or other job applications in the coming years. Impressions will matter a lot more then, so whenever you are visiting another program in the future, keep your focus and energy on that one!

There are no cons to having a visible web presence. I would say get your research website up with your CV on it as soon as you have it ready. So as soon as you can spare time to do this, do it! (In my department, this happens in your 2nd year). The only potential "bad" of website and CV making is that it does take up some of your time that might be better spent elsewhere. Since you might not gain very much from this in your first year, if your first year is very busy with courses and quals studying, it's fine to wait until your 2nd year.

As others said, you and your SO need to decide what is important for the two of you in the future. What would you want to prioritize? There's no right or wrong answer, as long as you are both on the same page! I've seen many long distance grad couples work out wonderfully and I've seen many couples fall apart. And sometimes when one partner moves to be with another, it works out really well but in other cases, one does feel resentful of the other and it doesn't work out. So I hope the two of you are able to have an honest talk with each other. I think you will have to rank these three things in order of priority: - Living in the same city - Being at the school you are the most excited about - Your SO being at the school they are the most excited about Some couples choose to prioritize being in the same place (or as close as possible) even if it means one or both of you don't go to your first choice school. You say that you got into UVa but your partner is waitlisted. Does UVa know about your two body problem? If not, letting them know at this stage could help your partner get off the waitlist, especially if UVa is interested in getting you to attend. Other couples choose to prioritize one person's top choice over another's. Some choose which person based on their future plans or interests (i.e. one partner may be more interested in academia than another). Or, they might choose to go to the city/school that is the best overall opportunity for the two of them combined. You're considering applying to NYC schools but has your partner considered applying to Baltimore schools next year? And finally, other couples decide that their relationship will work out best if each person is able to pursue the best path forward for themselves. Although my experience is very limited (maybe only know about a dozen couples or so who are/were both in academia), for my friends, this option seems to work the best for their relationship. That is, the relationships where one person compromises their career for another do not seem to work out as often as the ones where both forge their own paths. Baltimore to NYC is actually much closer than a lot of the other long distance academic couples I know. I know of three couples that are/were continents apart! Just to reiterate: I don't think there is one right answer that will work for everyone. I hope that by providing some example success stories, you can decide what will work best for you

I don't understand what you are asking. If you already got into your top schools and you are no longer interested in this school, why do you want to be accepted to this school? If you are not interested in interviewing, the correct thing to do is to also withdraw your application to this school. So, I would write back with something like, "Thank you for the offer to fund the trip and for the interview invitation. I recently received news from my other applications and I have decided that I will accept another offer. Therefore, I would like to withdraw my application from your school. Thank you again for considering my application." You should/could add some words to personalize it based on your interactions with this professor. On the other hand, if you still want to be considered for this school in case the funding at your top schools don't work out, then you should visit and interview. I am assuming by saying "interview" you mean you have not been accepted yet? Finally, if I misunderstood and you already are accepted, however, the visit is only to recruit you, then what you say now should depend on how far away the visit is and how close you are to deciding. I can write more about this if it's the case.

Yes. Because no one can predict what will happen in the future, few schools will guarantee / 100% promise there will be funding for every year. But schools should promise funding where available. The common phrase is something like "you will be funded for the entirety of your degree [or up to 5 years or whatever] subject to satisfactory progress and availability of funds."

Ask for an extension. You can give the reason (interviewing at other schools). If they say no, then you don't really have another option except to commit and back out later. I'd say it's their fault for forcing to commit so early.

In my field at least, this is the time for top schools to send rejections (most top schools send acceptances about 1 month ago to early Feb). So, it's an entirely normal time to receive them

Seconding fuzzy's answer. You can publish under any name you want and at this early stage in your career, it's a good time to select the name you want to use! To add to fuzzy's suggestion, another thing you can do (at least in my field) is to bold your name in the publications listing of your CV so you can bold your original name as well as your new name. You can also just make a little subtitle at the time of the name change and say something like "All my publications prior to [date] were published as [name]".

To the first question, yes, it's standard to be anxious about a big life change. The question is just whether it's worth it, for you. I note that almost all of your later career goals involve a big move, also to the states. So, given that eventually a move is inevitable, what's going to be different later on? In order for you to get to what you want, you will have to make a big move eventually. So, why not make the move now if it's going to give you a big advantage later on? If you really do not want to move, then that's understandable and you should not have to. However, if you are just having the normal anxiety, my advice is to think of the benefits to moving. You'll miss your old friends but you'll get to have a lot of new experiences too! I learned a lot more about myself and what I actually liked/didn't like after moving for the first time. I also found that time away helped me "reset" myself a little bit. It was like a mini purge of my social network: I felt that there were some connections/relationships that weren't really that important to me but still took up a lot of my time or energy, and adding distance made it more clear who my true friends were and who weren't really my good friends. There's a lot of crappy downsides to moving too of course, I was around for the first few years of my cousin's kids but now many of them are much older and I am missing out on being around for my cousins' newer children. But I still felt like I gained and grew more as a person being away and being challenged than I did if I were to just stay in a comfortable place forever. I think setting up a self-care plan is a great idea and ensures that you stay connected to what's important. In addition, another thing that helped me was to determine a long term "exit" plan. I had decided that I would give the "academic nomad" thing a try for 10 years maximum---after that, no matter what, I wanted to be close to home. For me, the worst thing about moving for school was that I had no idea where academia might lead me. I know many people who move for postdoc after postdoc and not being able to settle anywhere for a long time. I think giving myself an "end date" to moving around and choosing moves that I know will lead me to my ultimate goals helped me cope with the uncertainty of academia.

I'm in the last few months of my PhD at a top private University. Yes, there is a diversity issue at my school, for graduate students. I'm using diversity very generally here, but I mean it in almost every sense: there are overrepresentation of almost every majority group on my campus (gender, race, socioeconomic class, sexual identity etc.).

This varies completely from school to school and program to program. Yes, for some competitions, the GRE could play a larger role in this selection process than it would in the admissions process. But you will rarely know how a school conducts this. Note that the paper you linked is from the "ETS Report Series", i.e. a publication run by the company who conducts (and profits from) the GRE. Hmmmm..... By the way, sometimes these aren't really University-wide competitions. "University-wide fellowships" are generally a pot of money that the University has and there is some procedure in which the money is allocated. One possible way to allocate these is to just have every admitted student compete across the entire school. This is probably very rarely done because it's not going to be a very good way. How do you compare a English PhD candidate and a Engineering PhD candidate? (ETS' answer would be the GRE score of course, but does that really help the department get the best candidate?) What about bias towards familiarity of the field for the evaluators? etc. What is much more common for any University-wide pot of money is that departments or groups of departments are given quotas. So maybe e.g. the Physics department is going to get 3 students funded on this fellowship. The department then nominates 3 names for this award and the University approves it and voila, the money is granted. But it's up to the Physics department to determine how to decide which candidates to nominate. Unless there are specific instructions from the University, they are going to be free to use whatever decision method they want. For example, they might nominate the students who are good but their POIs don't have any grant funding. Or, maybe they offer them to the top candidates as a way to entice them to accept. Yet another method is that these fellowships are just a lump sum of money paid to the department for the purpose of supporting grad students. This gives the department the flexibility to use the money to top off student offers where the PI funding is lacking or for whatever other reason. This is how one of my previous schools did it. They got some amount of money and then every student had some of their funding (it might be $1000 or $5000 or $7000 etc.) come from "[University Name] Fellowship" and the amount depending on what was needed based on whatever other funding was available. If you are asking this because you want to know how to maximize your chances for such a fellowship, I don't think you are going to be able to find useful answers since the process differs so much. Instead, I would focus on just making your application as strong as possible which will help you get into schools and it's the top candidates that will get these offers. So no extra effort is needed or should be used, in my opinion.

What do you want to do after graduation? How does your first school you mention do in terms of placing its graduates in jobs? How does your planned post-PhD area of work view this school compared to the Ivy school? I think if you are aiming for academia, the Ivy league school sounds like a better fit. All of the things you mention with regards to research make it sound like an ideal PhD program. Funding for research and travel is one of the best things a grad student can have in their offers. Freedom to do research with whomever you want is a close second. I would say that smushing PIs together to form a "perfect PI" is actually a great thing to do if you are good at working with multiple people***. Now at the end of my PhD, I notice that the students who are most successful are the ones that don't just work with/for one PI, but instead, are able to lead independent research projects and collaborate with multiple PI. For example, one student who entered the same year as me has worked on projects with 3 different professors, wrote 7 first author papers and is interviewing for a tenure-tracked faculty position (they already have a postdoc lined up if that doesn't work out). ***Caveat to this point: this only works if the professors are actually working well together. You should assess this during your visit to this program. Find out how often professors work together and whether you are really free to work on simultaneous projects with Prof X and Prof Y. Finally, I want to note that "Ivy" or "top school" means very different things for grad students and undergrads. Similarly, the grad student life is very different from undergrad. I am at a top school too and I know the undergrads here really feel the pressure. But the grad student life is very different. So, I'd make a judgement based on how the visit goes, not on what you might have heard from undergrads there. Oh also, I do have some familiarity with earth sciences at some of the schools you list in your signature, so feel free to PM me if you want to discuss more specifics.

I'm not sure what happened, but I'm glad things are back in working order now. Maybe too many users on at once? (P. S. The moderators don't run the actual forum software. We only moderate content, so I don't have any more insight than you do!)

If you are applying to / visiting Earth sciences programs, I think it is a very good idea to ask about the security of future funding. Most likely, the department will have something prepared to say to you during your visit. If not, it could be worrisome. I think you should ask about things like the source of the funding mentioned in your offer letter. If the money is coming from a federal grant, ask the department if they have a backup plan in case future grants aren't there anymore. It's up to you what counts as a satisfactory answer, but for me, I would need to know there is a plan to actually promise me the funding for the full degree program. Some example alternate sources of funding might be private funds, department slush fund, moving people to other RAships that aren't federally funded, TAships, University-level scholarships or some University-level emergency pot of money etc. Probably going to be some combination of these things but if there isn't a plan that ensures 100% of admitted students will have their funding protected, I'd be worried. These alternatives aren't going to be fun though. You may have to TA more than originally planned. You might get switched to a different research project that still has funding. And the department will likely accept fewer students in future years to not overextend their emergency funds / TA positions etc. But these might be acceptable things to you. Although this is probably the most anti-science administration we have had for some time, it isn't the first and it won't be the last. If we stay in this field for long enough, there will be other crises like this to weather. So, unfortunately, I think some of the disadvantages of the alternative funding might have to be accepted. That is, you should definitely ask about their plans and I think you should expect some kind of promise/plan to ensure funding for course of the degree. But it might be too much to hope/expect that there will be no costs to these alternatives.

I don't think this happens and I think this would be a breach of confidentiality. Applications are confidential. Maybe different fields may have different norms, but I don't think this happens from what I know. Schools in my field will often ask the student about their other offers. I don't see a good reason for a school to reject an otherwise good applicant just because they have an offer from another school. However, it makes sense for some schools to ask the student if they are still interested in an offer before coming forth with one. You're right, schools don't want to make too many offers to students that aren't going to attend because these students take up offer spots and by the time these students say no, they might miss out on other applicants. Note that for most funded PhD programs, only about 30% to 50% of accepted students actually matriculate. So, schools usually employ one of the following tactics to avoid missing out on good candidates that are just below their cutoff: 1. Schools with more money might just accept everyone they are willing to fund, i.e. if they are looking for 10, instead of just accepting 20 and losing out on #21 through #25 (who may also be good candidates), they might just accept all 25 qualified candidates. If it so happens that a larger than expected number matriculate, then they will take a smaller class next year. These are schools with enough money in the bank that they only worry about long term averages and can handle an odd year or two with additional people. 2. If a school is not going to be someone's "dream school", they might choose to wait until March to make offers (in my field, the top schools have already finished making offers around this time). So, if someone applied to this school plus a "dream school" and got into a dream school, they might decline right away so the spot stays open. 3. Schools may ask students if they are still interested in an offer before extending it. If they have one spot left to fill and two applicants are qualified, they might ask both to see who is more likely to accept and offer it to that one. I don't think they will make an offer (or not make an offer) based only on the fact that a student has another offer, without talking to the student first.

I'm also not Australian but I have some experience with paying worldwide income tax (to Canada) while in the US. This is not for my student stipend since in Canada, grad student stipends are **not** taxed, unlike in the US, but I also have experience with actual employment related income. For Canada, employment income is taxed in Canada but they will take the amount paid to the IRS (United States) in consideration as credit against any tax owed in Canada, so that you are not double-taxed. For example, if it turns out that I owe and paid $2500 in taxes to the US, but if I calculate my Canadian tax owing, it would have been $3000, then I only pay $500 in taxes to Canada. So maybe there is something similar for Australia too. You mention the foreign income tax offset---that's what we call it in Canada (well replace "offset" with "credit").

I looked up my school on this NY Times interactive: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have-more-students-from-the-top-1-percent-than-the-bottom-60.html?_r=0 My particular school wasn't as high up there as I had thought (in terms of what % of the school's population come from the top 1% families) but privileged families were still over-represented. As you said, you can also see it in the types of outreach that most of the faculty and campus supports---generally getting scientists to come teach and talk to local private elementary, middle and high schools. This is all very worthwhile stuff and I do some of it myself too. But, I want to also maximize my impact, so I also try to seek out opportunities to do outreach and volunteer to visit local communities and public schools that don't get as much attention from my university. TAing in our final year is optional in my program (provided there are enough TAs) so I asked for a non-TA year so that I can focus that teaching energy/time into volunteer work with local non-profits to enrich their science curricula. So, for those who are concerned about this part of private University, I just want to encourage/remind you that there are many other ways to make an impact outside of the school! Some schools are already better at this than others, but feel free to spend your time making an impact off campus too

This is going to be very very very general. Note that every University, private or public, is really different so some may not apply to whichever school you are thinking of. I am going to assume that by private school, you mean things like Harvard, MIT, Yale, Caltech, Stanford, and not for-profit degree-mill schools! I am currently at a top-ranked private school but I have also been a student at public schools. Pros: 1. Top-ranked private schools generally have a lot more funding and financial support for its researchers. I have not heard the response, "That would be great but we don't have funding for it" in the last 5 years when it comes to research. (Note: this is mostly because the most expensive things I ask for are computers and conference travel, my line of work doesn't cost very much! But even these things were tough to come by at my public grad school). 2. You are more likely to have funding for research and less TA requirements. (This could also be a con). 3. You have less reliance on federal/public/government grants, so your funding may be more secure even if the current government isn't supportive of your science (or of science in general). 4. If you are an international student, you don't cost the department more. 5. Your funding, your department's funding, your advisor's funding will come from private sources, which generally allow more freedom on what you do with it compared to public sources. For example, some schools have restrictions on reimbursing alcohol (either for events or for personal travel). Federal grants in my field often do not allow the purchase of computers, or, if they do, they require extensive inventory management. Most of the funds used for my research comes from my advisor's start-up grant and this is a private source so we can pretty much do whatever we want, within ethical boundaries of course. 6. Having the name brand of the private school can be helpful in searching for jobs or other opportunities. Cons: 1. If you are hoping to teach/support under-privileged groups, you will find that most private schools have over-representation of the "upper class" students. 2. You are likely to be at a smaller campus and a smaller school. 3. Although private schools have fewer restrictions from government funding, the private money did also come from some people, who may or may not want to exert some control over the direction of the school.

Yeah, it sounds like you do have a tough decision to make. For what it's worth, I think personal fit is just as important as career fit when choosing grad schools. Although I don't know what your program is like, I know that for me, if I'm not happy with where I'm living etc. then I am not as productive. If I'm worrying about money and making ends meet, I'm not as productive. I guess one question for you is whether or not having courses listed on your transcript will help you get the job you want later on? Many jobs don't even ask for transcripts, so if you can get the same experience/knowledge some other way, there might not be any advantage to Alberta. Also, make sure those courses are actually regularly taught---I saw many departments where courses that are only taught every 4-5 years are still listed! Good luck making your decision! And it's always nice to meet another UBC alum

My opinion is different than some of the above. If you prefer University A over University B, It will not hurt you to ask University A. But this is more common to ask in my field. If you ask politely, you will get a polite response back! It will most likely be a "no" but you never know. The best way to ask is to tell them that you would like to accept their offer but the funding is too low for you to be able to meet your needs. Tell them that you have another offer from University B and tell them the dollar amount. Then ask if there is any way to have your offer from University A increased to match University B (of course, you may not expect them to match exactly, but if they can come partway that would still be good). Say that you can send the University B offer letter if that helps make a case, and say that you are willing to provide whatever other info that's available. Then you just have to wait and see. If University A really doesn't have extra funds, then they will just say no. I don't think it should reflect poorly on you---$15,000 is very little money no matter where you are in the US. They can't fault you for trying, especially if you have a much better offer. Usually I don't recommend applicants go for an offer just because of the money. However, in this case, $11,000 per year is a huge difference. Given how you have described the two schools, if University A doesn't increase their offer, personally, then I don't think I would take their offer, if I was in your shoes.

It's normal for some programs to accept students without interviews. This looks like a good sign---they probably coded your application as "accepted" so the computer generated emails and status updates happened. The offer details will come in an official letter which might take a little longer to arrive. Often, the usual approach is an informal message from the department (either by phone or email) then you get the computer thingy then you get an actual offer letter. Maybe the first step is missing here because they don't do that, or because something came up and they weren't able to get to you before the computer thingy did.

From a third party's perspective, your post sounds like you definitely want to be at McGill more than at Alberta. I think if you are 100% sure you want to go to McGill over Alberta, then make the decision now. You say you are 95% sure so it's just a matter of determining what will make you go that last 5%. I don't think accepting early makes a difference in whether you get the extra money, however, I wouldn't necessarily believe there is extra money unless the school says so. A contact might have wrong information or that it might have happened in previous years but not this year. So, unless McGill has mentioned this scholarship somewhere, I would not use it as part of the decision making process. It sounds like the only appeal of Alberta is the courses but you also say you really want to complete a thesis. So, what will help you achieve your post-degree goals more? In most cases, by definition, thesis programs have fewer courses so it seems like if courses is what will help you get to the career you want, you should consider Alberta more strongly (i.e. now you need to weigh your personal preferences against better career fit), but if thesis work is what you need, then McGill is definitely the better choice because it would be the right fit academically and personally. I'm not sure how your field works so I'm not sure if there are PhD programs that you're interested in. But generally, PhD programs want you to have thesis-based Masters, so that's something to keep in mind too.

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This is actually very normal and typical in academia. Many postdoc and other positions have the same procedure. I'll address the two parts separately (asking if you're still interested and asking for other offers). This is more normal for programs that only accept a few students, or for programs that have very qualified applicants and they want to get the most qualified ones. Let's use an example of a program that wants to accept 5 students and they have 100 applicants, 10 of which are really good. Ideally they would want to take their 5 students from this pool of 10. However, for whatever reason, they know that their candidates also have good offers from other places (either because the school itself is a top school or they are often a second tier school for top candidates). Let's say you are the #2 ranked candidate. For Candidates #1 through #5, they might want to check if you are still interested before issuing an official offer. An official offer might have a deadline to decide like April 15 so if you sit on that offer until April 15, then by the time you say no, it's likely that Candidates #6 through #10 already took offers elsewhere. So the school will either have less students or take on less desirable candidates (#11 onwards). Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to check in on Candidates #1 to #5 to see if you are still interested before going ahead. The right thing to do? Be honest. Are you still seriously considering this school? If so, then say yes. If you have some questions before you can know if you're still interested, this is the right time to ask them. If you already have offers from the your top 3 schools so this school is no longer something you want, then be honest and say no. It would be a good time to withdraw your application too. If you say yes now but then get good offers that interest you more later, then it's okay to give them an early decline so that they can move down their list. As for the asking for other offers thing, this is totally normal as well. If you want to negotiate your stipend, the only real leverage you have is offers from other universities. I am betting that this school has a set base stipend that they initially offer and there's a small pot of money that they can use to make their offer more attractive to their top candidates. So I would interpret this as meaning you are one of their top choices (or at least a top choice for this particular professor) and that they are willing to increase their stipend offer if stipend is what you need to take their offer over another one. Your offer letters from other schools are not secret nor confidential (unless otherwise stated?) and you are free to share them. If you are still seriously considering this school then wait to see their official offer. If you have offers from other schools with a larger number, send those letters to her so that she can negotiate for a higher stipend. However, only proceed with this step if you are prepared to take their offer should the negotiation succeed. The prof may have to use some political capital to get you more money and you only want someone to take this effort if you will take the offer.