TakeruK

Here are some reasons why you shouldn't read too much into it based on this info only: 1. People may not be posting reliable information 2. It's not generally true that a POI will call the student. Sometimes, it's just divided between the members of the admissions committee, and maybe for these people, their POI was on the adcomm. So maybe your call just hasn't come yet. 3. Maybe your POI/whoever was supposed to call you forgot to call you. This happened to me---I got a call a week after everyone else for one school. 4. Maybe they are not calling everyone who is accepted. 5. Maybe they did call everyone who they plan to accept in the first round, but more calls can come later. So there are too many possibilities to really give you any useful info!

Wow, that is hilariously unhelpful and stereotypically academic, haha!

I'll send you a private message to avoid further derailing this thread.

This is also great sentences to use when writing your SOPs. And I certainly used them in the research proposals of my postdoc applications

Just to add one more perspective, from my field, which may be different. I think if someone really only ever coauthors with students or former students, I would consider it a red flag. The reason is that this person is unlikely to be a good collaborator if they aren't able to work well with others in their own field and can only do science with their own group or former group members. That is, current group members are basically forced to collaborate with their advisor and those who graduated may be the ones who had a good relationship with their advisor. The lack of outside collaboration also means that if you join this group, you might be joining a pretty insular academic community. You will have fewer chances to interact with academics with different ideas/approaches and maybe more importantly, when it's time to get a job beyond grad school, you might not have as many connections and your network may not be as large. However, as others pointed out, it's almost never true that someone only ever publishes with their own group. That said, it's still worthwhile to see how often your potential advisor interacts professionally with scholars from other institutions that were not part of his/her group. Eventually, (some of) your advisor's network will be your network, so you want to see what you can tap into by joining this group.

Hi everyone, A quick explanation of the moderation decision. When the problematic behaviours were made aware to us in this thread, there were 10+ pages of material. We determined that there was a lot of inappropriate behaviour from multiple parties. Although one user may have started provoking people, the response to it was also inappropriate. However, we decided to not delete any posts nor change any reputation scores of this user so that the record may speak for itself on what is and isn't accepted by the community. Because the record clearly shows what the community thought of potentially bad advice and/or incorrect statements, the moderators asked the community to move on from this history and continue the discussion on other issues. There is no point discussing further whether someone is a good person or not, this is not what TheGradCafe is for. A few users decided to continue talking about other users. A 24 hour suspension was given as a "cool down" period. When another user posts something that you disagree with, or you think is wrong, please respond with your counter-argument. Or, you can choose to just ignore it since you have no obligation to correct anyone. It is not appropriate to respond with an attack on the person's real life character. Many users seem to think that incorrect statements should not be posted at all. This is not the spirit of our forums and moderation does not mean we require everyone to be correct. If you are attacked by another user, please use the "Report post" button to make the moderation team aware and do not engage in the same behaviour.

Warnings and temporary short-term suspensions have been issued for users who did not follow the above warning to leave personal comments on other users out of their posts.

I don't have experience with same-sex relationship. Currently, the law of the land is that if you are recognized as a married couple in your home country, this will be recognized by US immigration for F1/F2 and J1/J2 purposes. This law may change in the future, given that the President that enacted this law is very different than the current President. Sorry to not be more helpful. As for employment authorization, there is no criteria on what kind of employment or qualifications your J2 spouse has. This is not a factor in determining J2 employment authorization eligibility. I can also answer more specific questions about the process if you have them (feel free to send personal details via PM). I am on J1 for the same reason as you are considering---so that my J2 spouse can work.

Yes, ask if you can reschedule the visits. Start with the school you are least interested in and work your way up.

Moderator note: A reminder that when you post in this community, you are expected to refrain from personal attacks on other users. It is fine to disagree with someone, but argue against their words, not their person or personality. This is the last unofficial warning from me. Any further violations will result in suspensions. If you have any questions, please send me a PM.

No information is only bad if you know for sure that the school typically only makes one round of admissions. But even if this is typical, things might be different this year. There is a lot more uncertainty in the future of government funding for science etc. this year than in other years. I guess one other bad sign is that if the school has scheduled a visit weekend and that date has passed without you hearing something, then it's more likely to be a rejection than an acceptance. It's still pretty early. You will likely hear a lot in the next 2 weeks. Even if the school has already accepted some people, they might send out more offers later. Some schools may choose to admit the top students right away because they are sure about those and then send more admissions later on as they get a better sense of who is going to be accepting their offers.

I'd say to just email too. When I was part of a panel interview for a position at my school (a non-academic position), I got individual thank you notes from the candidates. But ultimately, I don't think it really matters. They are not going to select you (or not select you) because of a note. However, it's a nice gesture to people who will be your future colleagues (whether or not you attend their program).

Yes, you will get in trouble for this if you get caught/audited. As Eigen said, you need to meet two requirements to claim them: 1) They must be required. Not just recommended. But actually listed as required. Things like pens and notebooks do not count, unless there was a special pen or a special notebook required to complete the course. 2) You must have documentation/receipts for every item purchased. No estimating.

The advice I got was not to do this unsolicited, but instead to do this during an interview stage or in some conversation with the professor.

Echoing fuzzy, just pay it forward! Yeah, I had like spreadsheets and stuff to compare schools! The biggest / most important thing that changed my rankings was seeing the department culture. It's one thing to talk on Skype / email a few select students, but experiencing the atmosphere is another thing. Another factor was learning about future directions for the department from different perspectives. I felt that I didn't get the full picture from talking to my POI and their group but it was nice to have a one-on-one with people like the department head and other senior people. Helpful to be able to ask questions about their future hiring plans etc.

Yeah, definitely clarify with the professor / the person that made the offer to you. To help you though, here are some possible answers to your question / tips on how to find more info: This wording is typical for a lot of schools. This sounds like yes, the plan is to fund you for 5 years, and they are telling you that it is certain that you will have one year of GSR support and 1 year from your prof (interpretation: there are two years that you won't have to TA). The remaining 3 years are "competitive" and basically will depend on your progress. If your POI has funding, you might get additional POI funding, or if you get a fellowship (competed within the department I guess?) or a GSR then you will continue like the first 2 years. Otherwise, it sounds like your final years may be funded by a GSI (i.e. teaching). It also leaves the possibility of you getting no funding if you are not progressing, however, in most programs, this means you are getting kicked out----schools will rarely keep a student but revoke funding. So, the interpretation is that you will be funded for 5 years for sure. You know that 2 of these years will be GSR/RA type funding. The final 3 years could be more RA work or it could be TA work. I wouldn't worry about losing the funding. The clarification questions I would ask are: 1) what fraction of students are funded by GSR/GSI/fellowships each? and 2) how are GSR and GSI allocated? This is a little less normal in the sciences. Usually, the letter says something like, you are funded for the 9/10 month academic year on a TA (or GSI) and you can get a RA/GSR in the summer months. It is weird that the letter doesn't specifically say this. You should definitely ask what are the sources for summer funding and whether it's a competition and how many people get summer funding etc. Maybe it doesn't say because it's up to your POI to provide summer funding and the letter is only discussing the department provided support. So double check. It might be the case that you get no summer funding, but this might be okay if the 10 month funding is indeed enough to last the whole year. I would be concerned about this. How much is NRT? At some schools this is like $20,000. You should ask what happens after two years to ensure that you don't pay for this out of your stipend. Maybe like above, the source is your POI so the letter doesn't mention it. I think this is the most worrisome part of the offer!! One exception: Maybe the state that you are going to only charges NRT for the first 2 years and then you are back to the in-state rate. Hopefully you'll get this clarified. Sometimes the letter doesn't mention support for insurance. You should check the graduate students website for the school and see what kind of insurance could be provided. It is normal for students directly "employed" (although many schools will say we're not employees technically) to be able to have access to insurance benefits. So, you might only get school support for insurance only when you are on a GSI (and since you don't have a GSI offer right now, there isn't any). However, I think international students are required to have insurance, so you will still have to pay for the school's student plan. So check the school website to find out what the costs are. At one example school, I see numbers like $4000 per year for insurance for students, and $2000 if you are on a GSI. Also ask the POI for clarification on insurance benefits, if any. If there is no school offered insurance at all, then it's a little weird. But it's normal for a school to not offer insurance as part of your pay/benefits. You need to consider this when comparing offers from different schools. You can still check, but usually if there are still additional funding to be earned via fellowships, they would have told you. Maybe there are summer funding fellowships though. Note that even if you win additional fellowships later, you might not end up getting more money. Often, the written value on the offer letter is going to be your stipend no matter the source of the money. That is, if you win a fellowship for the last 3 years, you are not likely to be able to have the fellowship and also work as a GSI. They'll replace your GSI funding with your fellowship. Don't forget that stipends in the US are taxable. You may end up paying little tax due to a tax treaty between your country and the US, but remember to deduct taxes. Also remember that there are three levels of taxes: city, state and federal. Some cities and states do not tax their residents though, but just keep it in mind. You asked about health insurance, but also look into dental and vision insurance too. These are often considered separate from health insurance in the US. Factor in these costs when comparing funding packages. It's more common to see dental plans than vision plans. It's okay to ask the relevant questions to your POI. For some stuff, you might want to ask someone else more directly involved. If you got this offer from your POI, then ask all the questions above to your POI. If you got it from someone else, like the director of graduate studies or someone similar, then ask that person instead.

My opinion is to visit. There was one school that I thought was great on paper and in pre-visit conversations that turned out very different when I got there. I understand the extra hassle of changing your plans, but this is a 5+ year commitment to a place! It's worth a little bit of extra rescheduling. However, you don't need to extend your stay! As @CaffeineCardigan suggested, you should ask the school if you can visit early. Explain to them that you are already in the US for a month on X dates and whether it would be okay to visit during those dates instead. It would save the school a ton of money because they just have to fly you from whereever you are to wherever they are! Or, you might even be able to change your departing US flight to leave from their city and they could pay the penalty fee plus the one-way flight from where-ever you are now and where-ever they are. Give them both options (the second one may be cheaper) if both are okay for you. But if this doesn't work out and you still feel confident in your decision, then it will probably be okay to not visit. I personally still feel like a few days of travel is worth it before a 5+ year commitment though. There is a lot about a department you can only get when there in person!

You can ask, but some schools may not allow you to use that travel allowance for the moving trip. But other schools are explicit about this (one school that accepted me said that I have a $1000 budget that I can use for any combination of travel to the admitted students day or moving expenses, however I wished). So it's worth asking but be aware that many funding sources have restrictions on how the money is spent, so they might not be allowed to use the funds in this way even if they wanted to.

I have experience in both public schools and private schools and my pubic school experience reflects what @CoffeeFueledAnxiety describes and my private school experience reflects @AP's description. Just a couple of things to add: - At public schools, even though it might feel like you are a "second class" applicant because of the separate application pool, from sitting in on faculty meetings, I get the sense that international students are almost like a commodity. There can be extremely limited number of spots. For example, in a program with 80 students total, only 8 spots can be international. Assuming a 5 or 6 year program, this means they can admit about 1 or 2 each year. Professors compete with each other in order to get the international student (since the department often pays the extra cost of international tuition, rather than the professor). - At many US state schools, there are far more international applicants than domestic applicants, so this makes the competition even stiffer! A prof that worked at one of these schools shared some numbers with me. Let's take a hypothetical department that admits 10 students per year and gets 100 applicants. They will typically get 75 international applicants and only the top 2 or 3 will be admitted. On the other hand, out of the 25 American applicants, the top 7 or 8 will be admitted. - At my private school, in my department, people are admitted without regard to their country of origin. I think there is some more restrictions in certain fields due to US technology export laws. Overall, about 45% of the grad student population are international! Only the ones based in Canada or the US will be invited to visit though. We are also a small department so the process goes: all applications are received, the entire faculty reads every single application, some applications are moved to different departments based on better fit, and the top 7 or so are selected for admission. There is a small correction to avoid having too many candidates for the same prof because we want people who come in expecting to work with Prof X to actually be able to work with Prof X. Our department is connected with a few others in the same discipline and after each (small) department makes their decision, the faculty of the entire organization that houses all the departments get together and vote to approve each department's selections. Then, decisions are sent out. We do not interview.

How late are we talking about? Hopefully it's been resolved now, but to make you feel better, know that unless it is so late that it was sent in after the initial review begins, you should be fine. Most programs do not review immediately after the deadline but usually a week or two later. I had some late letters during my grad school applications because an LOR writer's close family member passed away. It was not a problem. Also, because it's just one letter, they can still begin initial review of your file even without this letter. Your letter writer's tardiness will not reflect on you because it's out of your control! The truth is that if they are really interested in you, they won't really care about whether the application is complete or not until it's time to make a final decision. One of my friends had an unknown missing letter and basically got a message from the program a few weeks later saying, "we're interested in you but you're missing a letter!" Once they sent that letter in, they got an acceptance right away. Good schools are not going to let silly little bureaucratic things like this make them lose a good student. Finally, I'm applying for postdocs now. The two applications where there were some issues with letters arriving on time (one was lost in the system for over a week, another missed by a day due to LOR writer travel), but I got interviews for both of these positions. So worry and frustration are certainly warranted feelings, but don't act in a way that harms your relationship with these professors. And if you contact the school you're applying to, be sure to not indicate any sort of negativity towards your letter writers. These things are all part of the norm in academia (you'll get last minute/late responses to all sorts of things in the future) and how you treat your colleagues and advisors now are going to be an indicator (to the school) of how you will treat your colleagues if you're in the field. Be sure your actions reflect your best self.

lol You make the "forget to tell the applicant" jokes, but it did happen to me at one school. I found out unofficially I was accepted (from a grad student friend at that school who organizes the prospective student visits and they saw my name) but I didn't hear anything from a prof for days. Finally I got a phone call. I asked the students about it later and it they told me Prof X was supposed to call me but they kept forgetting....so another prof had to do it for them!

Thanks! That's what I've been doing so far. I'm glad that I resisted the urge to just blurt you "You're my #1 choice, I would love it here soooo much!!!!" when they did not ask about it.

It's also okay to reach out to some of the other nearby schools at this point and let them know what you have an offer from X and hope to visit on Y dates. You can say that you are planning ahead because you hope to be able to combine trips to reduce costs and also because you want to leave lots of time for visa processing. Then, you can ask if the school has made decisions yet and if not, do they know when they expect to be able to make them. This will hopefully get you a useful response like: "We will send out decisions by Feb 9" (this is good to know because then you might be able to wait a few more days before making plans). Or if it's a later date, then maybe you want to pick later visit dates where possible. You might also get a rejection right there (most schools will wait until later to send rejections so you might already be in the "no" pile and not received notice yet). This is not fun to get, but it helps you with planning. Or, they might be able to give you some kind of indication of approximately when you would know and your chances. I wouldn't ask about the decision directly though, I'd phrase it as a question about decision timing instead.

I have received this advice and used it as well! For both grad school and postdoc applications. Question for @bakerstreet163 and other faculty members though: What if the faculty member/interviewer doesn't ask? What's a good way to bring it up without being too "pushy". So far, I don't volunteer the information unless asked, but I try to incorporate other things into my interview responses that correctly conveys how excited I would be if I had an offer!

I find that me and most of my colleagues are not really in a situation where contributing to an IRA is very practical. The main reasons are that 1) we don't really make that much money that we can save and 2) with the small amount of excess money, there are more immediate needs than IRAs (e.g. buying a car, saving for a home, paying off student loans). For me, I'm Canadian and have no plans to retire in the US. We have a IRA-like program too in Canada ("RRSP") and my plan is to contribute to this plan later on. Like some IRAs, money contributed to a RRSP is tax-free. With RRSPs, there is an annual limit on how much you can contribute to, however, that money does not have to come from income earned that year (no idea if this is the case for IRAs). The limit is some percentage of your taxable income and whatever you contribute in a tax year reduces your taxable income for that year by the same amount. I've had some RRSP contribution room for some years now, before I started grad school, so my plan is to hoard the few thousands I've saved during grad school and dump whatever I can afford into a RRSP when I return to Canada with a full time job. This will reduce my tax owing in the year I return and save myself a nice bundle of money! I think that even if I was in Canada right now for grad school (where we do get the equivalent of a W-2 for our stipends), I would still wait until I earned more money before contributing to a RRSP since you get a much bigger tax break when you are in a higher tax bracket than as a grad student (especially since for most people in my field, your post-PhD income will at least double). And with the low interest rates, I think you still "win" by waiting just a few years compared to contributing while in school.