TakeruK

I want to second this. My advice is to just remove all the specifics of location. Say what you hope to do after your PhD, but there is no reason to specify the location. I am at a US PhD program because 5 years ago, my home country (Canada) didn't have very many programs in my field at all. I didn't mention this in my application though, instead, I just focussed on the positives of the schools I'm applying to instead of the negatives/reasons for leaving Canada. You don't have to justify moving away from or moving back to Australia at all. Finally, if you do have visa interviews etc., then it is totally acceptable (maybe even encouraged) to tell the visa officers about your plans/goals to move back to Australia after your degree (if it's still true). On F-1 and J-1 foreign student status, one of the criteria of the program is to have ties in your home country and that you don't have concrete plans to use this study period as a way to stay in the US forever. Of course, if you end up with an awesome US job offer, you can still take that, but at the moment of entry on F-1 or J-1, you should not already have definite/set plans to stay in the US forever.

Yes, it is okay to ask about a timeline during the interview. It's one of the commonly suggested questions to ask when you get to the "do you have any questions for us?" part of the interview. In my opinion, this should not be the only question you ask, be sure to ask a question about the program itself too.

Maybe there is something special about your field, but I'm a little confused by how you can be so confident that the credits will apply yet you don't know the schools you're applying to yet. (For example, if you are applying to the school I'm currently at, your credits will certainly not apply because our school has a general rule to not accept any transfer credits. The cases above were from PhD schools that considered my Masters credits were schools that I ended up not attending). However, if this is because of some special situation, no need to explain here. Just doing due diligence to qualify my answer. And in the same idea of "due diligence", my experience shows me that transcripts do not indicate which credits are "excess" but this doesn't mean that your specific school won't do this. Perhaps calling the registrar of your current school (the one that will issue your transcript) can settle what your transcript will show though (or just ordering a transcript and opening it).

No, as far as I know, this is not how degree requirements nor transcripts work. This is a better question for your registrar. However, they aren't usually in the business of caring about exactly which courses count towards what requirement, just that they are all met. When entering direct-entry PhD programs with a Masters degree, some schools allowed me to count my Masters credits towards my PhD. They didn't care which ones I used towards my degree requirements, the big picture is that I have X credits from this program, which reduced my elective requirement in my PhD by Y credits. In a sense, you are just going to be transferring "general" credits. So, if you start your new Masters program, and you have completed 36 credits in your last program (30 required), what's likely to happen is that you'll just have 6 elective credits reduced in your new program requirement. ((Note: This is assuming that the new school is happy to take credits from the old school, since you said that wasn't an issue)). In cases like this (and in my Masters case above), whether the specific credits count depends on the new school. Sometimes, they will see that I took "Intro to X" grad course so that in my new program, they replace the "Intro to X" requirement with the "Intermediate X" requirement since there's no point with me taking the same course twice. In other cases, they say that the two courses are too dissimilar, so I have to retake "Intro to X" again at the new school. It will all happen on a case-by-case basis. P.S. Again, assuming you already checked this out with the new school, but just a heads-up. Many universities do not want to admit you into a graduate program where you already have a similar graduate degree (e.g. a second masters in the same field). So, assuming you are changing fields, then the specific courses you took won't really matter as much, hopefully!

When you write your CV, you can list the PhD course as the official title but also show your thesis title. For example, 2019, University of Awesome, PhD in Nutritional Science Thesis title: Cool Life Sciences Project Advisor: Prof. X I think it's pretty common that the official name of the degree isn't always exactly what you do. It will be your job to effectively convey this in the cover letter and other application materials.

Yes, I think you should apply to the school. I don't know if you need to contact the person ahead of submitting your application though. Unless you are in a field that absolutely requires prior contact, I would just submit the application if you're interested in the school. If you do need to establish contact, just say something like "I am submitting an application to your program in 3 days and I am interested in working with you" or something like that (i.e. no need to say that you just stumbled on their program last minute!!)

I think Applications could be right, but since you haven't had any replies, I'll move this over to Humanities now. There doesn't seem to be a subforum for your specific field. Some fields are better/less represented on these forums, so it could also be that no one knows the answer to your question! Hope you'll have more luck over in the Humanities forum.

As the others said above, this is unusual. There are some cases where students are able to teach as instructors of record, but these are usually first year undergrad classes. What you are describing here sounds like a bad deal for both the students who are taking the class as well as for the students who have to teach. I am going to guess that the instructors doing the teaching aren't getting paid as instructors of record and they aren't getting credit to be instructors of record either! Unfortunately, I don't really know what you can do next other than try to talk to the University anonymously. I wouldn't go as far as accusing your department of misconduct without more details, but as I said, this sounds suspicious.

How were you notified? If it's a form letter and doesn't seem to be coming from a person, you can wait until you are ready to make a decision. If a person wrote to you personally about the acceptance, then say thank you and that you will let them know about your decision as soon as you make it. In your case, you should decline the MA program as soon as you get a PhD offer that you know you will take instead of the MA program (i.e. no need to wait until every single program gets back to you).

I am not 100% sure what you are asking. But yes, it is possible to get an F in graduate school. And yes, everything does depend on each department too. At my current school, there is no policies like you state. All grades from A+ to F are awarded. So if a student submits nothing, they will certainly get 0 on the course and get an F. There is no rule explicitly that says grades below B are considered failing grades. However, when the committee reviews your academic record, the expected performance is at least a B or B+ average. At my previous schools, there were cutoffs. For a Masters student, the only possible grades are A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, and F. For a PhD student, there is no B- grade. The significance of the grades are supposed to be A = "Excellent", B = "Very Good", C = "Satisfactory" and D = "Minimal Achievement". So, the reason for the cutoff at B is that grad students are expected to perform more than just "satisfactory" since we are supposed to have deep understanding of the material. You sometimes see this in undergraduate classes too. Some of my Physics classes had a B- minimum in order to count as a pre-req for a later class, but you'll still get credit for it towards the degree if you score a C+ for example. Having different requirements like this make sense because if that was your last E&M class, then passing it is enough, but if you want to take the next level, you need to do more than that class' minimal requirements to succeed in the next level. In your case, I would interpret the B+ grade to be just slightly above the minimal expected knowledge that a graduate student is expected from the course. It means that you didn't excel at the material, but you do know what you need to know. In grad school, this is okay. Grad school is not only about doing well in courses and sometimes you need to prioritize your time and energy so that you excel in other areas that are more important. Having a lot of B+ grades could be a bad sign if the minimum grade to pass is a B though. If you are concerned about your progress, you should talk to your advisor or the academic officer for your department.

Please do not cross-post. The other posting has been removed.

The passport may indeed be the "most legal" ID, however, in practice, I find that some American organizations would prefer a state ID (e.g. driver's license) over a foreign passport. This makes a little bit of sense, because non-experts in passport technology won't really know if that non-US passport you're holding is an actual passport or not. Also, the foreign country isn't responsible to this US organization (or person) so there is little incentive to trust the non-US passport. This is almost never a problem when dealing with American organizations like the DMV, a bank, etc. My friends and I only have this problem when we are dealing with individuals that may not know what to do with non-US issued IDs. For example, a waiter at a restaurant may not accept foreign passports as ID for proof of age. Landlords might not accept passports for proof of identity. These cases are rare, but they have happened to me and my friends at least once each. I can also understand why one would be hesitant to provide a scan of the passport ID page. As you said, the passport is used to obtain other forms of ID. Having your passport number and the whole passport page could allow someone to pretend to be you. For some companies, e.g. the electric company in my city, they use the last 4 digits of your passport number as the security code instead of the last four of your SSN for non-citizens. So, I think there's good reason to be cautious of scanning and transmitting your passport ID page over email. I'm happy to show the office my passport and they can photocopy it if they want. Yes, there is still a risk but you usually can't get around them wanting a copy and I feel a little safer if they copy it in their office and store it physically in that office instead of having a PDF that can go to the wrong places.

Usually the applications asks for transcripts from universities where you either: 1. received a degree from the school, or 2. registered in a degree program from the school. Since it sounds like you were neither, you probably don't have to submit transcripts (to me, such a program wouldn't normally provide transcripts anyways). You can always ask your school if you are not sure.

As @Eigen said, grad school is potentially an entry into the world of academia, and this is not a world where people should only care about their direct research interests. A scholar and good colleague will be able to have intelligent discussions with all of their colleagues on their topic of research. However, this doesn't mean you need to care deeply about every topic and you don't need to get to the nitty gritty. But surface level interest is important and you should strive to find the parts of their work that interest you. It also sounds like you are applying to a multi-disciplinary program (or at least a biology program covering a wide range of topics) while you are mostly interested in ecology parts of it only. I would say that being only interested in ecology and not neuroscience/cancer would mean that you're not really a good fit for such a wide department and if you show this, it will reflect poorly on you. I personally enjoy being in a multidisciplinary program and I enjoy the ability to walk down the hall and have chats about research way different than my dissertation topic!

No problem, it would be good to ask someone in your field as well. But I did find a lot of these "culture shock" moments transitioning from Canada to the US as well. The bio sciences program at my school has 3 rotations (a 4th is possible) and I don't think all rotations are lined up prior to the student arriving. The first one or two would be set by the time the student accepts the offer though. Asking about the rotation selection process is a great Q during your interview.

If this is an interview to determine admission to the department, then it's normal for the interviewers to not be the same people as those you applied to work with (and those you might end up working with). At the admission interview stage, it's likely that the interviewers are either 1) members of the admissions committee, which are only a subset of those in the dept and may not include people you listed and/or 2) chosen out of the pool of faculty members who happen to be available. (There is a small chance that the only people interviewing you are the only people who are interested in having you as a student.) I think some different departmental norms may be at play here too. First, I'm in a different field so that might be a factor. In my field, grad students at US schools are usually admitted only to the department, without a direct assignment to a professor. So the interviews are generally with a wide range of profs, sometimes purposely chosen to be outside of your stated field of interest so that they can judge your breadth. But at Canadian schools, my field generally admit students to join a specific professor. Your sidebar info says you're in Canada, but it's not clear if you are applying to Canadian or US schools. You also say that you have been "sent an outline of the professors I'd actually be working with". What do you mean by "working with"? Do you mean the ones interviewing you or are they giving you an offer to work with specific professors? As to what to do next, I don't think you should necessarily worry about this until you have an offer from that school. Unless they have already said "if admitted, you will work with Prof X or Prof Y or Prof Z", you should not make any assumptions on that yet. You should prepare for this interview now that you know who your interviewers are. Things to talk about would be your own work, your interest in your field, your approach to solving problems, what you want to do next etc. You should also read a little bit on each of your interviewers and have good questions about their work as well as the graduate program in general. I don't think you need to figure out if these interviewers are your only choices for supervisors at this point. Sometimes at the interview, they will explain why they are your interviewers. A very good question to ask them at the end of the interview (when they ask you if you have questions) would be something like: "If I am admitted to your program, how do students choose an advisor? Do we decide this prior to arrival, or after some time here... etc." Then, if you do get an offer you should contact the people you wrote about in your SOP and tell them that you are accepted and that you would like to work with them. This is a good time to ask for them to confirm that they will be interested in working with you. Be sure to factor in your ability to work with the people who interest you when you make your final school choice.

If you do not have a letter of acceptance in your hands, then it doesn't matter what the weekend is called. The important thing is that it will likely affect your admission decision, so I'd treat it like an "interview" weekend.

It definitely varies by school. The ones that I've considered for grad schools (both public and private) did not have a per-credit tuition program. It's the same tuition whether it's your first year and you're taking 3 courses or it's your last year and you only have 1 course left. At my current school, the undergraduate tuition is the same way---they pay the same set rate no matter how many courses they take. For grad students, we have an "on-paper" rate equal to the undergraduate rate, but the real tuition cost that the department pays is set to be a percentage of our stipend (i.e. charged like overhead, but I believe there are other overhead charges in addition to this). I learned this because our school was recently considering what to do with the recent ACA (Obamacare) ruling that they were not going to be allowed to subsidize our health insurance in the future (full cost is $2700/year, school pays $2200, we pay $500) and one option we suggested was to just increase our stipends by $2200 (not ideal but it's something), however, they said that this would result in a higher rate for tuition for each prof since tuition is tied to stipend. However, this issue is no longer at the forefront because we don't know what's going to happen to the ACA.

I agree. The way I have been handling this is to set up the rubric where points are only awarded at the level where each choice I make actually means something different. So I likely would not grade a research proposal out of 100, because I can't distinguish a 92 vs 94. I might grade it out of 15, with a rubric to help enforce whatever weighting I want (maybe 2/3 weight on scientific content and 1/3 weight on writing quality for example). The rubric I use for most writing assignments (pretty common for me since I am grading grad classes) is something like: 5/5: Meets all requirements. 4/5: Meets all major requirements, but lacking a few minor requirements. 3/5: Missing one major requirement, or lacking most of the minor requirements 2/5: Missing more than one major requirement 1/5: Minimal achievement 0/5: Incomplete or not enough completed for a grade and I would decide ahead of time what the requirements are, and tag 2-3 of them as "major" while the rest are minor. Of course, depending on the nature of the task, there may not be any "minor" requirements, or the numbers might vary. I try to avoid awarding half-points because that destroys the "every point awarded is a significant difference in achievement level" philosophy. This scale from 0 to 5 would be for one criteria and each criteria might be multiplied by a different number to change the weighting. And there is more than one criteria, so it's not like my students only get 100%, 80%, 60%, 40%, 20% or 0%. But this allows me to avoid having to decide 92 vs. 94 or 81 vs. 83, and it smoothes over small differences between students. Because my philosophy is that small differences are not significant, I don't distinguish this in grading either.

I don't blog. I have a twitter account though. I use it as my main social media for professional interactions. It helps me keep connected to people I meet at conferences but maintain a little distance (compared to being Facebook friends). I also like that Twitter allows for one-sided relationships, so that I can "follow" super-famous-prof on Twitter without feeling like they need to follow me back (it would be too weird to FB friend request them though). I don't use my Twitter for public outreach, although anyone can find and follow me. I am mostly active on Twitter for just a few weeks a year at conferences. When not at a conference, I might make fun and/or serious remarks that my academic friends and colleagues might enjoy. I might celebrate achievements that are more relatable to my professional colleagues than my FB friends on Twitter, for example, celebrating that I finished a paper draft or silly academic puns. I keep my personal and social life more to FB. Finally, I feel like Twitter is a much more "low key" platform, personally. On Facebook, before I post something, sometimes I'm self-conscious about whether people will actually care. On Twitter, because tweets are much shorter and occur more frequently and because it allows for one-sided follows, I don't feel this way and I just filter for professionalism before I hit the "tweet" button. Tweeting isn't required by my school though. I just do it because I want to.

My plans are so up in the air right now! I have submitted the (first wave) of postdoc applications and most of the results will come in the next 4-6 weeks. Just like in the PhD application process, my spouse and I are stressed out since we have no idea where we will end up living later this year. I'm sure you and others who have gone through this process for postdocs can also relate! Because of immigration status issues, I don't even know when I will be defending. If I end up with a US postdoc position, then I will defend within 1 month of starting the new position. If I am returning to Canada (I only applied to US and Canadian positions) then timing is not that important. If I'm leaving academia, then I will need to defend by the deadline to receive my degree in June 2017. But I don't know how much the US government will change its priorities for my field after Jan 20. A lot of planetary atmosphere type work relies on studies of our planet's climate, and that might be in danger. Something that sounds like a great research position now might not be very good in a year or two due to the political climate. Being someone who is "Type A", especially in terms of time management and planning ahead, this uncertainty is so very not fun. So, one of my resolutions/"trying something new" is learning better strategies to cope with this stress. Grad school in general is stressful and I have been able to be fairly successful at managing stress in the past 5 years. But this new challenge is a whole new level of stress that I am still learning to manage. I know that I need to let go of worrying about things I cannot change at this point (and I often say this to the grad school applicants on these forums!) but it's easier said than done I'm improving though. My other academic goal for this year is to do a better job of decreasing perfectionism so that I can produce more tangible "products". Most of my papers have taken 20% to 30% more time than I wanted to spend on them and the extra time doesn't improve the quality of my work in a useful way. So one big goal for this year is to spend my time more efficiently and knowing when and where to spend energy.

These are interesting to read and I have seen some of this at my school too. It's very different in other countries, e.g. Canada, where there are often department or university-wide policies that forces professors to (somewhat) agree on what a letter grade means. In most Canadian schools, all grades within a "faculty" (e.g. Faculty of Science covering all science departments) agree on a strict conversion from points/percentage to letter grade. A- there is almost always 80%-84%. Professors do have leeway in setting what quality of work will be awarded 80%, 85%, etc. but there are policies to discourage grading by looking for natural breakpoints. But this is just a different grading philosophy than what many US schools do (for what it's worth, different profs in my dept use very different philosophies!).

I'd also add that you should check to ensure the application instructions do not forbid you from including URLs in your materials. One or two of my schools back in 2011 required that we do not direct the committee to any website or any other material outside of the requested package.

I don't think the fact that you were a finalist directly helps you. However, if you were a finalist, then it means that your experience and achievements are significant enough to get you to this round. There's much overlap between what the schools you're applying to and the Rhodes committee look for, so doing well in one is probably at least weakly correlated to doing well in another.

This is exactly how I feel about it too. My personal experience and impression is that private/Ivy-league schools seem to build this almost cult-like (to use a negative connotation) or big-family (to use a positive one) environment where students are generally more expected and sometimes more willing to help out in this way. (Note: I chose both positive and negative connotation analogies since there are benefits and drawbacks and I'm not really sure what the balance is lol). One explanation is that private schools may pay their students more, or provide other good benefits that asking this of a student in return isn't as much of an "ask" as it would be if they were barely paying their students. Also, another thing I've been thinking about is that all the places where the visit is with a student have been in very low cost of living cities, where the grad students have very large and spacious apartments or even own their own houses (the examples I'm thinking of include both public and private schools). My current school (private school in high cost of living area) put us in hotels. So, the reason might also be to show how nice you could afford to live as a student, especially if the town/city itself might not rank highly on most people's lists.