TakeruK

I see two differences in your version of the events than what I read. i) I read Person A's response as not feeling safe or not feeling comfortable on a plane, not that they believe planes are more dangerous ii) Person B actually said, "I don't think you need to worry about the typical Trump voters" not "If X is the reason you don't like flying on airplanes, then your fear is unjustified" However, let's move away from the specifics of the discussion and focus on your version of the analogy, because it seems like we are now debating why I responded the way I did and I can still explain that with your version of the analogy. In your analogy, I'd focus on Person B's second statement (specifically, the phrase "your fear is unjustified..."). Why does Person B feel that they are able to say whether another person's fears are justified or not. Here are the reasons why I would think Person B is presumptuous/arrogant in their response: 1. Person A is a stranger and might not have provided all the information necessary to determine whether or not their fear is justified. 2. Person B is basically telling Person A how they should feel, when Person A has the right to decide for themselves how they should feel. I think it's very arrogant for Person B to make statements like this and basically claim to know what's best for Person A, even though Person B does not know Person A. To be clear, I'm not saying that you should not argue or debate. Person B makes logical and correct statements (assuming that Person B actually defines what they mean by "safer", whether it is in terms of fatalities per passenger-mile or whatever, but you left that out for brevity). However, being logical and correct is not mutually exclusive with being presumptuous and arrogant. In your analogy, if Person B's second line was "Oh, well I feel safe on airplanes because of [[insert statistics or facts that support their feeling of safety]]", then I think Person B has made a logical argument without being arrogant. Obviously, being arrogant isn't a crime and Person B can make these statements if they want. But other people will likely call Person B out on it.

Oh okay, I saw your sidebar info and although I am not familiar with it, I know that education and policy fields tend to be fairly different. However, if it's a different field, then have you heard about the April 15 CGS resolution? (http://cgsnet.org/april-15-resolution) If your school is a signee of this, then you might be able to have until April 15. Even if your school is *not* a signee of this, if other schools are, then they might choose an April 15 deadline anyways to streamline everything. However, there are a couple of important caveats: 1. The resolution is signed by the Graduate School at each of these institutions. Some programs (e.g. education) are under the professional school or some other separate school, not the graduate school, so it doesn't apply. 2. The resolution relates to funding offers not admission offers, so there is certainly no obligation for the school in your case to follow this resolution, but they might choose to do so. I don't mean to bring up the CGS resolution as the answer to your problems, but it does provide some context to why you might be able to get an extension. --- To answer the other part of your first question, it's certainly not great to go back on your decision (i.e. accept then jump ship to another school). But I would feel that this is much less of a big deal when there's no funding involved. I would advise against it, however, if the school requires you to decide before March, then I think you don't really have a choice! In your shoes, I'd accept the offer and if something better comes up, I would have to go back on my word. It sucks, but I would say the school forced your hand. (This is also part of the reason why schools signed a resolution to adopt a common deadline!)

If there is no deadline given for your decision, the right thing to do is to first just ask them if there is a deadline and note that you are waiting to hear back from two other schools, which have indicated early March decision dates. Receiving a funding offer should not be contingent on you accepting an offer beforehand, but I realise our fields are very different. In my field, the advice would be to not make any decisions until you have a funding offer, since if they know you will take their offer, some schools will be less motivated to offer a bigger package. If you are unsure about your chances at funding without a commitment, you can also ask if you are still eligible for funding decisions in February if you have not yet accepted their offer.

While I can't speak for every program out there, typically you do not find out the end result from the interview. I would say that usually the interview is just one component and the committee will likely meet again after interviewing all the candidates and decide how to move on from there. The interview is just one part of the process.

Usually, this means that the degree was officially or formally awarded and this happens around the time of a graduation ceremony. For example, at my current school, degrees are only conferred once per year, in June of each year. So someone who defends their thesis this month might finish all their degree requirements and such by February (after handing in all paperwork and final thesis etc.). This would get them a degree completion status on the transcript and a letter saying all requirements are completed. In June, when the degrees are officially conferred, the transcript will show conferral status and you'll get the actual piece of paper that is the degree. For almost all purposes, the "completion letter" is what you need as proof of completion for most things. However, in some cases, such as starting my PhD program, my school wanted the proof of conferral of all previous programs. I had finished a Masters degree in August, started my PhD in October but my Masters was not conferred until November (this school confers degrees twice per year, in May/June and in November). The school was happy to extend the deadline for proof of degree conferral until the end of the calendar year after I told them I could not get my Masters conferral until November. For proof of conferral, my school wanted either a photocopy of the degree itself or the note in the transcript that says conferred (not just "completed"). So, if you are in a similar situation, check with your school and see what they want and when they want it

Let's take your airplane example and break it down. Here's the difference, in my opinion: What I'd consider a reasonable response when one disagrees with a stranger: Person A: I don't like flying on airplanes because I fear for my safety, so I prefer to travel by car whenever possible. Person B: Here, look at this statistic that shows there are less fatalities per passenger-mile in a plane than in a car. What do you think? (or Person B can say something like "This is why I feel safer on an airplane" etc.) What I'd consider an unreasonable/inappropriate response when one disagrees with a stranger: Person A: I don't like flying on airplanes because I fear for my safety, so I prefer to travel by car whenever possible. Person B: Here, look at this statistic that shows there are less fatalities per passenger-mile in a plane than in a car. Therefore, you have nothing to worry about when traveling on an airplane. What if Person A feels claustrophobic on an airplane due to tight spaces? What if they have a fear of that feeling you get during take-off and landing? Or maybe they had a really bad previous experience on a plane (extreme case: they survived a plane crash). There are a lot of things that Person B doesn't know about Person A's experience, so why would Person B feel they have the authority to deem that Person A does not need to worry. Person A can decide for themselves whether or not they need to worry about their safety.

I did read what you wrote carefully. In fact, I read it several times and also this reply several times to ensure I don't misunderstand. I'm glad to hear more clarifications though. However, I didn't say you "presumed" to know what a stranger has to worry about. I said your actions were "presumptuous", meaning that I thought it was inappropriate or arrogant for you to declare that a stranger did not have to worry about X when you are not living their life. To be clear, I believe there is a difference in stating what your experience has been (not presumptuous at all) but I thought it did not make sense for you to then go on and tell a stranger what they should worry about based on your experiences only and not considering their experience. In your second paragraph, you continued to do the same thing to me, another stranger. This time, you are indeed presuming that I haven't already considered the things you are saying. I'm not saying that one viewpoint is perfect and that one side is pure evil and the other is pure good. In addition, picking out individual cases that prove your point doesn't always show the big picture. On the other hand, in terms of basic human rights and threats to me and my loved ones, I see a lot more danger in the actual planned policy and actions of the current administration than the incident you mention. I will just give one example: the current plans to repeal ACA without a replacement** will kill tens of thousands of people. (**Yes, the platform is "repeal and replace", however, I see action taken on the "repeal" part but not on "replace", especially not whether the replacement will have the important aspects of ACA).

First, I think it's a little presumptuous to go around telling strangers to not worry about X. We don't know every aspect of other people's lives and what they have to worry about. So, why don't we let each person decide for themselves what to worry about? Second, I do feel like I have my guard up around all Trump voters. Trump ran a campaign based on hatred and represented the antithesis of many ideals that are important to me. I recognize that Trump's campaign has some aspects that are not terrible that might appeal to some people. However, from my point of view, the people who voted for him only for these issues and claim to not support his racist/sexist/homophobic/anti-science/etc. stance are basically saying that they care more about their own issues than the basic human rights of other people in this country and on this planet. To me, people with this mindset scare me because if they are willing to put their own concerns ahead of other humans like this, even though they are not currently targeting me and my identity (Asian male) right now, why wouldn't they do so in the future? And while I may not fear for my own safety this instant, I care about my friends and loved ones who do identify as groups targeted by Trump's policies.

Okay, I merged the original thread with the new acceptance thread, which effectively is renaming the thread. I had thought this would be more problematic because I had thought people already posted non-acceptances here, but it seems like the original thread was indeed only used for acceptances! So, I think everyone will get what they want: separate threads and renaming of original thread! yay! Share your well earned acceptances here

Okay, someone go ahead and create these threads and then send me a PM

I cannot rename threads (but I can do something convoluted and create a new thread with a different title and then "merge" this thread to effectively rename it). I can split threads too, but that would require manually splitting off each individual response here. We like to have the community choose the direction of topics rather than moderator imposed except for extreme situations. So, my suggestion is this: 1. Someone should create each of these three threads, if that's what you want to do. Maybe you can include all the info already provided in this thread as part of the first post in the new thread. 2. Then, I can lock this thread and provide links to each of the three threads as the final post. With the original poster's permission (@Turretin), I can also edit the original post in this thread to have the same links. If people are happy with this, then please let me know and go ahead to create those three threads. Then, I'll make the links. I'll lock this thread after 24 hours of no one posting in this thread (other than posting to say they want to do this).

I don't think most people will think twice about it when it's not a required class. Also, if it makes you feel better, I'd say that since the first case was early in college so it won't matter as much, especially if you still had a full courseload after dropping it. So I don't think you have to address it at all in your application and it should not affect you.

Indeed, I know some of my friends are wondering what the minimum H1-B salary will mean for them when they apply to TT positions or other permanent positions. Typically, industry jobs are above that minimum though, so I guess those folks should be okay. For a postdoc, it's normal to go on J-1 status (unless you were already J-1 grad student), so that should be "protected" for a little bit (maybe enough time for midterm elections to have a Dem. Congress/Senate). Canadians also have the option of TN status instead of J-1 or H1-B. But it's not ideal---TN status is basically applied for and approved/denied at the sole discretion of the border officer.

I guess I didn't mean it as your literal safety school, but a euphemism for "a school that you aren't very excited about (yet)". I am guessing that you are saying this school is not at the same tier as the very top PhD programs? But is it much lower (like rank around 30 and below?). If so, then I think you are right that the prof has a feeling that it might be your safety school and that you would much prefer to go to a top ranked school if you could. In this case, you would want to avoid saying anything unprofessional or that might offend, but ultimately, everyone knows the "game" here. So, I would go for honesty and say what you said here: you have not yet heard from other schools and you are waiting to see offers before you make decisions between schools. Then reiterate your excitement for this particular group. You can also offer to update them more when you hear back from other places and ask when would they like to know more information, if you want. This type of response is basically a non-response, but they should understand why it is a non-response. They probably asked because they probably suspected that you might be considering them as a safety school so that if you already have a more exciting offer, you can just tell them no thanks and they can move onto another candidate. I think by being as honest as you can be at this point, and offering to keep them up to date, you are acting in good faith. In addition to all of this, if you just got the email from the prof today, consider waiting a few more days before responding. You might hear from other places this week. You can check the "Results Survey" of this website or other places that your field might use to see if your other programs typically returns decisions this week.

This is a hard position to be in. I would be honest about the other schools: Just say that at this point, you have no offers from any school yet. This will also help with the next point. As for your likelihood for accepting the offer, you should also be honest, but with some "strategy" (for lack of a better word). Assuming that while this school is not your #1 top choice, it is a school that is relatively interesting to you (i.e. it's in the top half of your list?), you can say something like: "Although I would like to hear back from more schools before making a decision, joining your group would be one of my top choices." Then you should add a sentence about what in particular about this group excites you. This conveys interest and no commitment at all. And you have said that you are still waiting to hear back, so there is good reason for your non-committal answer (i.e. it shouldn't read as unenthusiastic). I have had to answer similar questions in my postdoc applications/interviews and the advice my advisor gave to me was to make sure they come away with the sense that you are excited about the opportunity, even if you are telling them they aren't your #1 choice. However, if the above is not true, i.e. this is one of your safety schools or something, then I think it's actually a lot harder to reply! You might be able to say the same thing as the above, but leave out the "one of my top choices" phrasing. Good luck!

Yeah, that was really disheartening to see today. I know that one of the big government research facilities in my field put out an unprecedented number of new hires last December (mostly for permanent staff positions, but some postdocs too I think) in anticipation of this scenario. I guess they were right. Hope some people got jobs in this way!

Yes, this is normal and it's certainly never a bad sign (i.e. they wouldn't google you if they were already planning to reject you). However, I wouldn't read much into it either---you don't know if they google every applicant as part of the review process or if they only google top ones. You don't even know if it's even someone from UCLA. So, don't overthink it

Here's some quick advice in case you are not used to giving these short presentations. They'll make you sound like an experienced grad student and you'll fit right into the department 1. I second the "one minute per slide" guideline. To account for the general tendency of going over, I include the title slide as part of the count (i.e. for a 5 minute talk, it's title slide + 4 content slides). Alternatively, practice practice practice to get the timing right. 2. Each slide should only convey one single message. Make that message the title of your slide. Then, include whatever schematics, plots, data, etc. you need to support that point. I also second the suggestion to cut as many words as possible. I very rarely have any words at all on my slides, only labels and figures. Use the software's "Presenter Mode" in order to see notes on your screen but only project your slides. 3. Ensure every slide is legible from the back of the room. One figure per slide! Feel free to "doctor" the images, e.g. if the axis labels are too small, draw over them in Powerpoint and make bigger labels. If they are very jargon-y or use abbreviations, replace them with more clear labels. If a figure is complex and have a lot of data points, you can either: recreate them with the minimal material necessary to convey your message (if they're your figures) or use Powerpoint to block out or highlight important points. 4. When introducing yourself, don't make a slide on it. That is, don't have a slide that just lists your previous projects and your background etc. Keep the title slide on the screen and spend 30 seconds talking about yourself. 5. Make sure you have citations and attributions for everything you put into the presentation. If you are putting your own figures, label it as such (e.g. "waderpanda et al., in prep"). If you are putting someone else's figure, be sure to cite it. For extra points, if you are presenting something that someone at the dept works on, use their version of the figures and cite their work. This shows that you understand their contribution to the field. To answer your specific questions: For the format, I think you have three good options, assuming 10 minute talk slot: - If all of your projects have a common theme, or answers a common question, then start your talk with 1 slide of background on why this question is interesting. Then spend 1 slide per former project and focus on how this project relates to that question. Just say your main contribution and the main result. Then spend 2-3 slides/minutes on your Masters work. - If your past projects have been very different (this is normal/okay for undergrads), then maybe summarize them all on one slide (but not a list---you can just talk about this during the title slide intro too). Spend 1-2 minutes just mentioning them all and say that you would be happy to talk to anyone further about these projects, but you want to spend your time today on your Masters work. Then, move onto the background and results for that. - If you only have a 5 minute slot, I'd skip the previous projects. For the "future work" section, I would advise against listing all of your future research plans for the same reason your advisor gave you. However, for your Masters work, you should have a slide that discusses what's next for this project. That is, talk about what could be done by someone who is interested in pursuing this further, but don't necessarily say that you will be the one doing this. This is an important aspect of scientific talks because it shows you understand how your project fits into the bigger picture. If you don't have time to present this slide, that's okay, make it a "backup slide" to show during questions if it comes up. Also, although you shouldn't make your plans for research in grad school an actual slide, you should be prepared to answer the question if someone asks you what you see yourself doing in this department. You can remain non-committal and state that these project ideas are things you would be interested in as potential directions. This will avoid the concerns your advisor has.

Unless you were given specific instructions to NOT email the professors, it should not hurt for you to email them. The worst that could happen is that they ignore your email (and don't feel bad if this happens since many profs won't write back if the only thing the email would say is "cool, see you soon!"). I would just write something like, "Dear Prof X, I will be visiting Awesome University during the Feb 16-17 interview weekend. I'm very interested in your work on XYZ and I have let [person**] know that I would love a meeting with you during my visit. I hope to see you next month!" (** the name of the person that emailed you to ask for the list of names!) Some notes: - Specify the specific dates, as some programs have more than one meeting date - Specify that you already let [person] know that you want to meet, so that it's clear that you aren't asking to schedule a special meeting with them - Don't ask for anything specific! They will be very busy and usually these visits are all scheduled by the same person (or a small group of people) and not the faculty themselves, so coordinating anything outside of official channels can lead to confusion Why I think it's good to do this: - It shows enthusiasm and interest (and of course, only do this if you are genuinely interested, don't just do this for every single person). I would only send an email like this to one or two professors at each school that you are really really interested in meeting - If the prof will be away that week, they will probably let you know. This will also help you because you don't need to feel like they were not interested in you if you don't end up getting a meeting with them. If they say they are away, maybe they will offer to call you or Skype you. - Sometimes profs have more requests than they have time slots for. In this case, the meeting coordinator may ask the prof to choose who to meet with. Establishing this contact with the profs you're really interested in might make them choose you. (Corollary: This is why I don't recommend emailing 5 or 6 profs like this, since it won't help prioritize your meetings).

I am a Canadian who has been in America since 2012. I would say that a big part of my comfort of moving to the US for my PhD was that Obama's first term showed me that the US can be a very different country from what I knew about it in the past. I'm not applying to schools now but I'm about to finish my PhD and I'm applying to postdocs. To be honest, I still don't know if I would be comfortable staying in the US for a postdoc. I applied to equal numbers of US and Canadian positions. Although I do not yet have any offers in hand (the majority of things I applied to will be deciding soon though), I have not ruled out the possibility of leaving the field if I can't find a Canadian position (rather than accepting a US position). Also, there are some US positions at locations I would have been comfortable in if the election went the other way, but now I'm much less interested under President Trump. Note: It's not that they were in red states but that they are far from my family in Canada and I don't think I would want the double combination of living in a Trump USA plus inconvenience of being close to home. All of my application deadlines for US schools were before the election, and most Canadian applications were after the election. In some ways, I am grateful that the deadlines fell this way, because I did not reduce any application based on the outcome of the election (if anything, I was more motivated to work hard on my Canadian applications after Nov 8). While my field is growing significantly in Canada, the US research community has far more funding, people and resources than Canada. It is frustrating that I have to choose between pursuing my field and my own safety/welfare**. ** As a male person, I am definitely less affected by the Trump Administration than others so I know there are others with much more at stake than me. I am potentially affected by Trump in other ways though (skin colour, minority group membership, citizenship status, health, etc.) And, I also feel a little bit of responsibility to be back in Canada and campaign against Trump-like policies for the 2019 election.

On this point, the standard way of arranging this type of support is to talk to the school's disability/accessibility office when you arrive (or feel free to start a conversation when you are still considering offers). In case you are not familiar with how things work in the US, the method that most will suggest is to talk to this office and arrange for whatever support you need (you may need documentation in some cases). Then, with a note from this office, you can talk to your professors and they will provide the accommodations necessary. Alternatively (or in addition to), you can also talk to each professor one on one and ask for whatever support you need (e.g. getting materials early etc.). If you are more comfortable with this, then this route is better. But, most officials and profs may recommend you go to the disability office first because 1) there is no need to convince each person one at a time and 2) it will help you get the support you need faster. Just one note though--at least in my field, it's common for professors to not have the notes ready for the lecture until the day of the class. Currently, under the ACA law, you aren't allowed to be charged a higher rate because of diabetes. So you would pay the same as other 31 year olds. But this law might change---repealing and replacing ACA is one of the Trump administration's main goals If it goes back to the way it was before ACA, you might not even be able to purchase insurance

My international student office held a meeting for all international students after the election to address some of these issues. Of course, nothing is certain and especially since the Trump administration isn't very forthcoming with concrete plans/details. However, some takeaway points: - F-1/J-1 immigration is not one of the Trump administration's main concerns. Their election platform was about removing undocumented immigration and protecting US jobs. - Law changes take some time to take effect. For example, recently, the F-1 OPT time increase from 27 months to 36 months for STEM majors took about 5 years to go through the whole cycle and that was supposedly a "fast-tracked" change. - Basically, things that can be put into effect quickly (e.g. executive orders) can be taken away quickly too but law changes are slow. Overall, the first/biggest changes are likely to be: - An executive action to counteract Obama's "DACA" (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). - Reduction in number of H1-Bs (or increased requirements). I've heard that they are considering a plan to make the minimum wage for H1-Bs to be $100,000 (i.e. effectively discouraging many companies/universities to hire H1-Bs at lower level positions). These things definitely affect academics! But to answer your specific Q on F-1 visas specifically, I don't think there is any reason to expect changes on that soon. F-1 / student visas did not seem to be on their platform and it is not expected that they will focus their early energies on this. Of course, as new students you would be concerned about what happens 4-5 years from now, but many things are uncertain that far out. Things are just a little more uncertain right now due to who's in the White House! We don't know what Congress and Senate will look like after the midterm elections in 2 years and there could be a new President in 4 years. I'm not trying to make it sound like everything will be okay. Personally, my biggest worry would be the possibility that Trump issues an executive order halting all immigration of all statuses from certain countries. It doesn't seem likely he'll do this for no reason, but perhaps something might happen that causes him to react in this way. This could happen while you are already in the US, which means if you are from one of these countries, you can't leave the US or you won't be able to come back in. So, there are certainly lots of valid concerns. But at this point, there seems to be no planned changes to F-1 and J-1 foreign student status. And my personal philosophy is to not make big life decisions based on what might happen in the long run. (Finally, note to Beals and other Canadians: We don't have/require visas to enter the US, we just need status instead).

I'm sorry to hear that you feel deceived. I think it's crappy of him to go back on his verbal agreement like that. But keep in mind that he might not think he has done anything wrong. And as I said, from my position as a third party observer, I don't think he did anything unethical or wrong either. As the lead on the project, he should have the authority to add more collaborators onto the work. Perhaps he could have gone about it in a more transparent way, but personally I would not choose to cut off plans for future collaborations unless you knew he purposely acted unethically. However, maybe my inclination to compromise comes from the fact that my field is quite the opposite of yours---collaborations are absolutely necessary! So, perhaps the best thing for you is to not work with someone like this again. But since you have such good things to say about him other than this incident, I'd say it is worth clearing up any potential misunderstanding first.

@angesradieux: Thanks for the additional details. I see why it's frustrating that these two additional people were added. I am glad to hear that you are still the first translator though. I think it's still worth it to follow up with the professor and find out how the credit will be shared (and also whether the royalties will be split in additional ways). Maybe these two additional people did provide a small amount of work but will not receive anything other that credit on the title page?Again, I need to preface this with the caveat that I'm in a very different field but it still sounds very much to me that this project was "owned" by the professor the entire time. One major clue (to me) that it is the professor's ownership is that he was the one that sent the email to you and the original author declaring how the royalties will be split. In addition, the professor recognized that your translation was your work and that you were free to pursue it independently. However, you did not, which to me, signifies that you are comfortable with him taking charge of the project and using your work with appropriate credit and compensation. And finally, when you were making these translations, you were sending them to him, chapter by chapter for him to edit. This is another sign that shows, to an outside observer, that the prof is the one in charge. Sorry if the above sounds like I'm placing blame on you. I am not trying to say that, just explaining from a third person's perspective why the situation seems like it's one where you provided a service that was essential for the "boss" (i.e. the prof) to complete the work. But this doesn't necessarily mean you need to be consulted with every major decision. In terms of moving forward, I agree with fuzzy. Decide what you need to get out of the situation and ensure you get what you need. Some things are not really worth fighting against. If financial compensation is important and these extra people are going to get more than their share of the royalties, then it's something you might want to bring up as a concern (depending on how much and if it's a fight worth fighting). But if your main concern is that you don't want to see these two other names on the title page, then I don't think that's an effective fight to fight at all. Having more people share credit doesn't diminish how much credit you'll get for the work. And if you fight it, you might turn out to be in the wrong (e.g. maybe the prof asked these two extra people to double check your work or something) and this could hurt your ability to get good recommendations from your prof and maybe even these new people. What is worth more to you? Finally, I think this experience is also a valuable lesson on making issues of credit and authorship more clear at the beginning of a project. Whenever I lead a project and I ask for a piece of analysis or work from another researcher, I always make it clear that I would want to include them as a coauthor in the initial invitation. Similarly, whenever people ask me to use my code or analysis on this piece of data, I usually ask for authorship in exchange for my time and efforts. (Sometimes, if it's a new collaboration, I might provide some sample results first to see if it fits their needs and analyze the rest once they agree to include me as a coauthor).

Yes, you are right, but I meant something different than what I wrote (oops, sorry!) and what I think you are saying. What I mean is when my school negotiates a deal with our insurance company, my school officials have statistics on past student usage to justify a potentially lower premium. We can show that typically, our population makes X million dollars in claims, so the insurance company will want to collect X+30% million dollars in premiums. I was mistaken to say that comparing the open market to people of all ages. What I should have said was that our specific student population might have more reliable usage stats than the general age groups/bands in the open market. For example, a bunch of grad students that likely engage in more low-risk behaviours, working at desk jobs, etc. might be a more appealing group. I don't know for sure. I learned this information because I work with the school officials as one of the student representatives in determining our health insurance plan. Maybe the school officials are somehow misleading me though. However, the numbers make sense. The full price of our student plan is $2700 per year, and the closest equivalent ACA plan in our state would cost over $4000 per year. Our school plan also has specifically negotiated benefits that we, as students, have lobbied for which aren't in the ACA plans, such as 25 free annual mental health professional visits (after which it's a $15 copay per visit). These benefits are added at a low cost because the stats show that usage rate in our population is low. And they know the size of the population so they know their maximum risk. It would be too risky for an insurance company to make this benefit available to the whole population. Sorry that I wasn't clear earlier and made the mistake with the age thing. What I really mean is that in some cases, having the smaller population of just students at the school allows the school to get a better value plan than what would be available to the open market.