TakeruK

As fuzzy said, rejection sucks and it's a big part of academia. If it makes you feel better, I'm applying for postdoc funding and the two fellowships I would have liked the most have already rejected me. Oh well. I've also got rejected from a lot of top tier funding sources at the undergrad and grad level. It's common and normal to feel what you are feeling at first. Rejection feels very personal, even though you normally get a very impersonal form letter. But I think it's important to remember that it's not a rejection of you. Especially for these super prestigious and super competitive fellowships, at some point, winning one is due to luck as well as your materials. Everyone is going to be highly qualified, so it can come down to factors completely out of your control. For grad school admissions etc., it could just be that they already accepted another student to work with that professor, or that a certain professor didn't get some other funding so they can't take on a student after all etc. I'm saying this as someone who has won some of these prestigious fellowships in the past---I know that at some level, there was some luck / things I can't control involved. So, being rejected from this highly prestigious and competitive award does not mean that you don't belong in this upper echelon of scholars. These awards aren't perfect predictors of future success and there are more people in the "upper echelon" than there are these types of awards. That's why more and more awards are being created everyday but we rarely hear anyone complain that there are too many academic funding options that it's "diluting" talent! As an example, a professor in my department has been named on several "top 30 under 30" type lists. He recently appeared on a list with President Barack Obama! He's definitely in the upper echelon. But when he applied for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program? Rejected. This is award that is far less competitive than what you applied to (2000 awardees get the NSF GRFP each year). In academia, we often focus only on the successes. When we read about CVs, or hear an introduction of a speaker, or read their papers, we only see or hear about what worked. If you could read the "CV of failures" (e.g. https://www.princeton.edu/~joha/Johannes_Haushofer_CV_of_Failures.pdf, similar to the "shadow CV" that fuzzy linked, it was the topic of a Nature article that started a little trend that you can google) of prominent professors, you will see that there are many rejections along the path to success. The best people in our fields don't just go winning one award after another, despite what it might seem. And finally, my opinion has always been that if you didn't receive any rejections then you probably didn't push yourself/challenge yourself enough! So far, in this postdoc application cycle, I already have 4 rejections. Most of the applications haven't returned a decision yet though (I'll hear about most things in January). One of the rejections came at a really bad time, while I am writing essays for another prestigious fellowship. It really tanked my confidence. I think it's definitely okay to feel bad about yourself and take some time to process these feelings. After a rejection, I allow myself to feel sorry for myself for a little bit. I get myself a treat, maybe it's the sugary coffee drink that I don't really need but I'll have anyways, or a nice dinner, or that piece of cheesecake in the supermarket bakery aisle. Then, I remind myself of my past successes, and remember that it's not a rejection of me, it just didn't work out. And it's time to move onto the next challenge. I think the tips and steps in fuzzy's first link (from makewritelearn) are very good and I learned to follow similar steps to process rejection (although I haven't seen this particular article before so I still learned a few things).

Congratulations! Good luck!!

My advice is to ask specific questions that are personally relevant to you, instead of general questions. As a grad student, a prospective student is a stranger, but someone I'd like to help if I know that my answer can be helpful. Sometimes giving an honest answer will put me in a vulnerable position or potentially at risk so I think a prospective student should ask the question in a way that ensures to me that this risk is worth it and that my answer will actually be valued. This means that you should decide exactly what you want to find out ahead of time and ask these questions. It's really hard for me to answer vague and open-ended questions like "Do you like the program?" or "Are you happy?". I would say you should ask specific things and share something about yourself in doing so (makes me feel like my answer can be helpful). So, if you are worried about your background in topic X in the coursework, just say that and ask about the courses. An example question from my field would be, "My undergrad degree was mostly in physics and astronomy, so I have had very little earth science experience. What would the courses be like without a lot of geological science experience?". I think this is a much better question than something like, "How much geology do I need to know for the courses?". The first version tells me about your specific concern, so that I can tailor my answer to your particular case. Also, don't make the student feel like they are being tested/judged. If you are asking a subjective question, I would say that you should share your opinion first before asking about mine. Using another example from my field, let's say you are looking for an earth science program with a lot of field work opportunities and chances to do field trips. Don't ask something like, "Are there a good amount of field trips?" or "How do you feel about the field trips in the department?". Some students will like doing them and some students won't and if I say that I don't really like the field trips but I get them out of the way, and you say that you love field trips and want to go on as many as possible, then you put me in an awkward situation. Instead, I would suggest that you start out saying that you are interested in field work opportunities and want to go on many field trips, then ask about the opportunities. If I'm a fellow field-trip fan, I would be happy to share your excitement and tell you about the great trips. But if I'm not, I can tell you this (knowing that you are a big fan) and then tell you about the opportunities I know about plus also direct you towards the other field-trip fans that I know. Some people might say that by revealing your expectations before asking your question, you might get a biased answer if the student you're talking to just wants to only tell you about the good parts. However, I think if this was the case, then you would still get biased answers. On the other hand, if you are talking to a student who is willing to be honest to a stranger, and you make them feel like you are testing them, you might catch them for one question, but it might reduce their willingness to answer future questions. Also, if you do end up attending the school, remember that these students will be your colleagues. In general, I'd say you should structure the questions for topics #1, #2 and #5 in your list as "I am looking/hoping for X, what are your experiences with / what do you know about X in the department?". For topic #3, I'm not sure how you can get this information. Something that is a setback for one person might not be a setback for another. I wouldn't ask this question directly. It might come up in general discussion with students about their life. Topic #4 is also tough because if you are talking to current students, we haven't graduated yet and we don't know what happens next for us. You could ask about what recent graduates have done, but remember that you don't know these people and haven't met them, so their outcomes can be very different than yours.

It may be "more" true in the sciences, but not all of the sciences are what you describe! Some of the theoretical researchers in my department have no labs, no hardware, few grants and a lot of intellectual skipping around. I'm kind of in between---I don't require any hardware (other than a computer) for my own work, but we do write proposal for access to shared nation-wide resources (telescopes). However, the time spent collecting the data is like 1-2 weeks per year, and the rest of the time is working at my desk. In these cases, I do think the advisor still plays a large role. I think this might suggest that this applies outside of the sciences too, but I'm not in your field so I can't know for sure. Having an advisor with a good reputation matters more than just grants/hardware/money. Letters from your advisor might have a little bit more weight (although I think most people are careful enough not to let knowing the letter writer affect their evaluation of you too much). However, your advisor should be your #1 champion when it comes to promoting your work and helping you join the network of professionals in your field. Someone with connections and resources can help you do this better than someone who doesn't. That said, I don't really agree that advisor reputation is strictly more important than department reputation. I think they are both important factors you need to consider together. Look for a place that can give you enough in both, even if it means there were other places that had better fits in only one of these aspects. That's my opinion anyways. From your description here, it sounds like the original two places you were considering will offer something in both of these aspects, but the latest option presented to you only has the good advisor fit factor. If Plan B isn't some sort of academia-related work, then I don't think you have very much to gain from working with the best post-Marxist feminist gender scholar compared to working with a "good" post-Marxist feminist gender scholar. To me, the only reason to even consider this super advisor is if you want to be the next great post-Marxist feminist gender scholar. Otherwise, if you are considering a wide variety of opportunities after your degree, you're much better off at the "Princeton" school instead of the other one. That is, people who aren't also post-Marxist feminist gender scholar won't care if you worked with their best colleague, or not. Finally, I don't know if this applies to your field, but you can still collaborate with this great prof at the other school without being their student. If you have a good idea, write to them and see what happens (after discussing with your own advisor of course).

How much of a difference does it make? You don't need to publicly disclose your GPA so I'll give some examples where I think it makes a difference and where I don't think it makes a difference. GPA differences that I think would be significant: - your cumulative GPA going from below-3.0 to above-3.0, or - a cumulative GPA change from below some published cut-off for the school to a value above the cut-off, or - a change in your cumulative of 0.3 points or more (this is pretty tough to do with just one semester but maybe you have had other circumstances that made your previous grades poorer). GPA differences that I don't think merit any action: - If your GPA is already above 3.7, then it's not a big difference, or - Changes in GPA of 0.2 points or less, except in cases mentioned above. I personally don't think another semester showing a trend is going to make a difference. Either you already have several semesters of an upward trend, or if the trend just started 1 semester ago, having another one isn't enough to establish a strong trend. And as @NoirFemme says, schools do set their deadlines with knowledge that this past Fall's semester grades might not appear. They'll evaluate accordingly. Finally, if you decide that you want to update your application, the best way to do it is to email the person responsible for application materials at the school's "Graduate School" or "Graduate Studies Faculty" and the person at the department you're applying to. You don't know yet whether the application is still with the Graduate School or if it has been sent to your department already. I would attach the new unofficial transcript and include a note saying something like: "If possible, I would like to update my application with a new transcript including this past semester's grades that became available on [[date]]." Then, include your applicant ID number, the program name you're applying to, etc. (or whatever information the application software gave you and would help them connect this file to your application). I wouldn't make a big deal of it, just include the information and let them decide if they will consider it.

I agree with the above and want to add one thing that might help. Although the beginning of a new semester could be a busy time, the majority of a prof's letter writing burden would have been back in November/early December (at least in my field). Good luck!

You don't have to go to a small institute to get what you want. However, it's really hard to answer this question as broadly as you have put it. Work environment varies greatly from department to department within the same school even. So I'd name my school as a candidate for what you're looking for, but only if you're in my field. I know that in other departments, things are very different, even though it's the same school! If you happen to be in the same field as me (I know about earth/planetary science departments, and physics/astro departments), feel free to send me a PM and I'll tell you about these departments at my school and whatever other departments I happen to know about (through visits or my friends' experiences).

Definitely agree. To me, being aware of the issues is important and recognizing that some things are not as simple for others as they are for me is necessary for the change we both want. I don't mean my post as a critique of yours, just sharing an experience where I learned something. I want to contribute to a different academic environment where everyone is free from double standards in clothing. I try to do this by confronting these issues where I hear colleagues say things like someone is "trying too hard" (I ask them what they mean and try to have a conversation to see why they are saying what they're saying). If asked, I always support a person's decision to dress up (or to play it more conservatively). I feel like since it's not my career on the line, I don't want to put someone in a position where they feel like they need to be pushing the envelope!

I think men might have less issues in general when thinking about what is professional. For example, I was presenting a poster at a conference which was primarily blue, so I thought it would be nice to wear a blue polo shirt to match it. I was discussing this with my friend, who was presenting a green poster and she was considering green nail polish to match, but was afraid that people would think she put too much effort into matching and look down upon it (even though the nail polish is totally professional). Just sharing since I used to think that professionalism was the only thing that mattered too, but evidently, there are other factors going on that we might not have to worry about.

Second this. Buying yourself an upgrade, if you have the ability to do so, could be a really good idea if you are flying between two interviews etc. Sometimes I feel weird telling the person processing my reimbursement that I paid for a luxury (even though it's pretty typical), so I also do what fadedfigures suggested---pay for the upgrade separately at the airport and keep that completely separate from the receipts submitted. If that's not possible (e.g. the school wants to see the actual boarding pass you used, which might indicate this upgrade) then oh well.

Indeed, I was not trying to imply that my experience is what all TAing is like. I meant my experience to be a counter-example of what Turretin said, i.e. there are cases where going to the prof isn't correct, so I don't think Turretin's comments that students should appeal to the professor is the best "default" advice either.

I think we don't really have all of the information. I agree with you that in some specific circumstances, it makes sense for the student to go straight to the professor. However, in most cases, the grading is mostly done by the TA only. Hopefully this was communicated clearly at the start of the class and if so, it would be a mistake for the student to go straight to the prof. But this is not like the worst mistake ever or anything. Just a "something the student hopefully learns for next time" kind of mistake. The two main reasons why I think it's not a good idea for students to go right to the prof is: 1. For lack of a better term, it would be skipping the "chain of command". I think if a student has an issue with the grading, they should talk to the TA first. If that conversation does not resolve their issue, then they should talk to the professor next. This is an important lesson in the academic world but also in most of the working world! If you have an issue with your coworker, you talk to them first, you don't go straight to their boss! 2. In all of my TAing experience, I have almost absolute grading authority. I've never had a professor give instructions to me on grading schemes before. At the start of the semester, we sit down and discuss what our mutual goals are for our students' assignments and then I create my own grading scheme, grade the problem sets and pass the graded homework to the prof for them to look at before they return it to the students. So, if a student was appealing for a change in grade from 6/10 to 8/10 on a particular problem, there's no way for the prof to approve this change without consulting me first because the prof doesn't know the grading scheme. I definitely agree with you that the prof does have the final say and has the right to delegate. In my experience, the prof almost always delegates 100% of the grading responsibility to the TA. In that case, it would be inappropriate for a student to go directly to the prof, but as you and others point out, perhaps this wasn't clearly explained! I think that because this is a frustrating occurrence for a TA, we might be a little hard on the student in this thread, but in reality, it's just a minor mistake!

Just remember that if you are carrying more than 10,000 USD worth of cash (or other monetary instruments) when entering the USA, you have to declare it at customs. I am not sure if you mean this value when you say "not a small amount". You ask whether your parents can send you money at the airport? This isn't easy to do. But you probably don't need to get it right at the airport. My tip would be to put a small amount of money in a different place so that if something happens to your main chunk of cash, you still have something like $100 or $200 to pay for things like getting from the airport to your new apartment, and paying for food etc. until you can get more money.

This is the right thing to do, in my opinion. I know it's frustrating but I don't think your letter writer has any bad intentions. Profs know that the deadlines aren't super strict usually. Also, sometimes the software screws up and doesn't indicate that they have your letter. For the school that is 8 days late, you could email that department and check if they have received the letter. This is also a good way to let them know that your letter might be late. Again, usually it's not a big deal as long as they are able to get it into your profile before they are reviewed (which probably won't happen for awhile). As for your interactions with the professor, be persistent but professional as menge suggested. Avoid the temptation to show your frustration or impatience. You can also say things like "Maybe the software didn't register it so would it be possible for you to log into the system and send it again?" and at the same time let them know you're also following up with the school to ensure they got the letter (i.e. it's not just them doing the legwork). Finally, I would say that I wouldn't let this less than satisfactory experience sour your relationship with the professor.

Have you talked to the school that you are applying to yet? Find out when the absolute latest deadline is. Many schools may have deadlines in December but they won't review the applications until January, so as long as the letter is submitted before then (and that they know to expect it late), it should not make a big difference.

That's a very generous stipend for that area. I am not in the exact same area but I have lived fairly comfortably on less money at places with very similar cost of living. Your best bet is to talk to the students when you are interviewing though and find out!

Like fuzzy, I used to care/be annoyed but now I just laugh about it. Some of my students used to think that my only purpose at the school was to be their TA and they were surprised that I am also a student and also taking classes! I hope your student is wise enough to take the hint from the professor that they shouldn't be doing this and will be smarter next time! This is the relationship I have with my prof too (who is also my advisor). We set it up so that most of the times where we have to tell the student bad news (like denying a request, whether it's valid or not), it's the prof delivering the message. It works for us because students tend to argue with TAs but not profs, and this reduces the amount of conflict between TA and students, which increases my ability to help students. I wouldn't want a student who needed help to avoid coming to me because they didn't like how I denied their extension request.

They said it will be fine so I think you should be okay. It also sounds like they don't want you to replace the SOP, so there's no need to worry about it any more since you can't make any more changes. Good luck

I did this. Yes, you should fly from one school to another. You should talk to both schools and let them know that you are planning to split the costs. You should probably just propose a split and ensure both schools agree to it. Each school will have its own requirements and rules on what is allowed so ensure you can meet all of that before you make any plans. One tricky thing is if you need to split a single expense but both schools want original receipts! Fortunately, it is likely that the only such expense would be the airfare between the two schools, and it's pretty easy to just print 2 boarding passes (if they need those). I think the best thing to do is to lay out all of your expenses (with estimations of cost for bookings not made yet) and tell both schools what you'll be charging to each school. So you might propose something like this: Travel from Home to Home Airport, $20, School A pays Flight from Home Airport to School A, $150, School A pays Flight from School A to School B, $100, School A and B to split ($50 each) Flight from School B to Home Airport, $125, School B pays Travel from Home Airport to Home, $20, School B pays That would just be an example, for flights and transportation only. You may be able to ask for coverage of meals while traveling too, so add that as necessary. However, note that you probably shouldn't ask School A to pay for expenses incurred while visiting School B. In this above example, I took the most simple case where the flights to/from School A and B are about the same and assumed that both Schools are offering to cover the same amount of cost (or close to it). Something more tricky would be if you lived a lot closer to School A than School B so the flight to A is a lot cheaper than B. Then the schools might not be happy with evenly splitting the airfare between A and B. Even if this is not the case, I highly recommend that when you make your actual flight bookings, immediately get a quote for the roundtrip flights to A only and to B only (i.e. pretending that you are only visiting one school). In the first step, when you ask them about their requirements, they might already ask you to do this. But if not, get it just in case. It's normal for reimbursements like this to ask for a quote in the single-school visit only and then they'll reimburse your multi-school visit up to the cost of the single school visit. Also, having this documentation will help you in the case that School A is a lot closer and therefore they only want to pay for a smaller portion of the A-to-B airfare and this can justify to School B why you are asking them to cover more of the airfare.

I'm in a different field than yours but this is a factor that transcends fields! Does your field have school visits? A lot of the information you are looking for, especially about specific resources to students, is best learned during a school visit. These things aren't usually well publicized on websites. If you can't visit, try to set up some Skype calls with profs and other grad students. You can definitely ask about things like whether or not students feel like they can go to the conferences they want to go (or if they always have to make hard decisions due to limited funds), whether or not there are department-wide or university-wide sources for funding if your advisor doesn't have money for you, whether the stipend is enough to live on, what is the quality of life etc. For determining reputation, yes, reputation within the field is important, but overall reputation could also be important, depending on your goals. When I was choosing, I was deciding between two top schools in my field. However, one was a private school that was well known beyond my field, and another was a public state flagship school that had little academic clout outside of a few fields. In this case, because the "in-field" reputation was equal (I'd rank these programs as #1 and #2 in the country), I put a lot of consideration on the overall school ranking. The reasons to consider the overall rankings (e.g. US News): - I might want to consider non-academic jobs, and someone outside of my field would be more impressed with a PhD from the private school instead of public state school. - The private school draws a lot more money from alumni and philanthropists than the public school, often translating into more resources for research and sometimes extra perks for students too. I wasn't sure of this at first, but after I got here, I was amazed by the difference in availability of resources at this private school compared to my past experiences. - Usually, but not always, the higher ranked schools are in areas with other academic institutions, so it's easier for you as a student to access collaborators and colleagues in other universities. It's also more likely that your university will be hosting big events for your field, so it increases your exposure. Finally, you wrote about determining these reputations. I want to say that this only really matters that the "big picture" level. I'm not quite sure, but from the description of what you're doing, it sounds like you might be trying to discern differences too small to matter. When I considered "reputation", I mentally divided the schools into three categories of rankings. The specific numbers may vary due to the size of your field, but for me, there were top tier programs that would probably be ranked 1-10 nationally. Then there's another tier that might rank 10-30. And then there's everything else. I don't think reputation really matters when differentiating between rank #3 and rank #7. It's all the same. I would consider reputation as a factor only when you have to decide between these two different "tiers". Here's how I would determine the school's reputation (and the reputation of its members). Some of these things aren't probing reputation directly, however, what we really care about is the advantages that you get from going to a school with a strong reputation, so we can look for these benefits/advantages instead - Word of mouth is actually not that bad. But make sure you get the right opinions. If you have good relationships with a wide variety of professors, talk to them about your grad school options. They might share lots of thoughts with you. Yes, it is just word of mouth and people's opinions, but that's exactly what "reputation" is anyways. It's not an objective score, it's other people's subjective opinions. Again, you won't be able to get precise information like "School X is the #3 school" from asking a bunch of people. But if you talk to people about "good graduate programs in X", and you hear certain school names over and over again, then that tells you something. - I look at the papers of the students in the program. See what kind of work they're doing, what kind of resources they can use. - I go to the major conference websites for my field (we have a big national one every January) and search the abstract database. It allows me to sort by institution, so you can see what the students are doing at these meetings. In my field, oral presentations are more prestigious than poster presentations, so you can see how often people from School X give talks vs. give posters. You can also get a sense of how often the school sends students to these meetings. Oh also, some conferences have student presenter prizes---find out where they're from. - I go to the society webpages for the major society in my field and look at the past awards. My society awards 3-5 prizes each year, for different things like "Career Achievement Prize", "Young scientist" (i.e. a prof with a PhD in the last 7 years) etc. This is a good way to determining an individual person's reputation, because if they win one of these, it means they are recognized by the field as a superstar. These awards require nomination from others in the field and are very competitive. If you notice that some schools often have winners then that tells you something! - In my field, there is a journal called "Annual Reviews of Astronomy & Astrophysics" (similar Annual Reviews exist for a lot of other fields). Scan the table of contents and see who is writing the review articles. These people are generally going to be considered the foremost experts in their topic. These authors are specifically invited to write these reviews. See who they are and where they are working. For the topics specific to your area of research, read the review article. They usually have a very extensive literature review as they will often summarize all the knowledge and work on the topic to date. See who gets cited. Which works are considered field-defining? - Go to the department's website and look at the list of faculty. Usually they will say the title of the professor too, like the "Jackie A. Smith Professor of Biology" or the "Rachel E. Miller Chaired Professor of Physics". These special professor titles are usually because the money came from a donor that endowed the position. If you see a lot of these types of titles on a department page, you can infer that they are getting a sizable chunk of income from donors. - If your field has national graduate fellowships, for example like the NSF GRFP, you can often search the database of winners. Find out if students in the department you're interested will often win them. - If your field has national prize postdoctoral positions, find out where these winners got their PhDs. - Finally, one of the advantages of going to a high ranked school is that you're more likely to have distinguished speakers come visit for the seminar and colloquium series (and you're more likely to have many of these talk series). Go to the department website and look up who the past invited speakers have been. Are they getting the top researchers in your field to visit? Would the variety and quantity of talks and visitors interest you?

Agree with the above! Some advisors will spend a decent chunk of time with their students during big conferences actually (typically during the social events like coffee breaks and receptions). They'll "take" their student along as they meet up with old friends and introduce you to them. Also, like rising_star said, sometimes the change in environment helps prompt the conversation/advising towards a different direction than your typical research meeting. And, it's a good idea to talk to your advisor about the presentations you're seeing, especially if you have questions!

Interviews can be used to judge the quality of your ability. I agree with you that subconscious biases can affect an interviewer's evaluation of you. However, subconscious biases will also affect someone who is evaluating you without an interview. For example, they might read your CV and make judgements based on your name, the country you come from, etc. I do think that interviews are not fair unless everyone is treated the same way though. That is, either interview everyone on the phone/Skype, or interview everyone in person. I think inviting only some (usually only Americans) to an on-location interview can cause unfairness in the evaluation.

People working at these schools generally know what flights typically cost from various locations in the country to their location. They have lots of people (seminar speakers etc.) that they will fly to their school so these numbers are commonly seen. So, I would advise against trying to max out the $400 just because you want to spend more money. These numbers are "up to $400", not "you get $400 to spend how you wish". As someone who plans these types of events too, we often expect some people to not use the entire allowance in the budgeting. That said, given that the limit is $400, and the prices you're looking at is around $100 something, I would say it's probably okay to spend up to $150-ish to choose an airline that is more preferable to you (i.e. avoiding the budget airlines like Spirit or Frontier) and/or choosing a flight that is at a more convenient time for you. But if you have a choice between a $125 flight and a $350 flight, I would say it is a bad idea to pick the more expensive one just because you can. But as fuzzy said, Economy Plus is unlikely allowed (you can always ask though). Most schools have policies that restrict it to Economy tickets only, and this is true for everyone. Profs and postdocs that travel often will usually gain elite status and be upgraded to better classes. But the ticketed value will likely have to be an Economy upon booking.

(emphasis added). I think this is a really good point! Sometimes it's not really possible to find it out without being a little overly intrusive though. In my field, the most common reason you see professors move from top 30 schools to lower ranked schools are "two body problem" reasons. Maybe the prof's partner is also an academic that did not get tenure or did not get a tenure-track position at their current location so they moved to a place where both of them have tenure or other good positions. It's not uncommon for a professor to be untenured at a top school and get hired as a tenured professor (or even full professor) at another school. I mention this because a professor leaving a school doesn't mean that the school is bad or that the relationship between professor and school fell apart---it could be due to non-academic reasons. (It could also be both, but just saying). Sometimes, knowing why someone moved can give you a sense of how likely they will stay. But since you don't really know the person personally, it's pretty tough to guess their motives and values etc. In any case, the important point that I forgot to mention earlier is that professors moving is not a big deal (at least not in my field) so you should consider this in choosing schools. If there is only one person you would want to work with at this college, what would you do if this professor moves while you are there? It would be another "con" in my list, if I could only work with one person at a school.

I agree with fuzzy. I did a back-to-back visit during grad school applications but there was a day in between (first school Mon-Tues, fly to second school on Wed, second school Thurs-Fri). I recently visited 4 schools/departments in 4 days (2 schools each in 2 cities) as part of my "talk tour" for applying to postdocs. It was doable but not very fun. However, the discomfort was worth it for the visit and I would rather do it all in 1 trip than to take 2 trips (which means more time away from home). Definitely take measures to take care of yourself. The schools were going to pay for me to take a train (6 hour ride, plus extra time to get to the station) but I opted to pay the difference for a flight instead (40 mins). When I had to get to the airport at 5am, I took an Uber/taxi instead of public transport. A few other tips to keep your energy levels high: 1. Let the schools know about your schedule. The first school needs to know when you have to leave for the airport and you don't need to have extra stress about whether you'll make the plane. If they know your schedule, they can ensure you get the important meetings done by Wed afternoon (also hey, if you haven't already asked, can you move the first school interviews to Mon-Tues instead of Tues-Wed?). The second school needs to know about your arriving flight so that they don't schedule something right in the morning in case of delays (it will be the season of bad weather on the east coast). 2. As fuzzy suggested, bring energy bars and other treats you like. I keep mine in a messenger bag that I carry around so I can give myself an energy/sugar boost when needed. 3. In many cases, your schedule will involve back-to-back meetings so that you are basically booked from 9am to 5pm! If this is the case, people often offer to walk you from one office to another. But, if it's all in the same building and you think you know the way, you can politely decline (and say you'd like to use the bathroom first). This gives you a minute to catch your breath and mentally prepare for the next one. If the next meeting is far away then maybe take up the offer to get walked to the next building, but then maybe excuse yourself to use the bathroom before knocking on the next prof's door, if needed. 4. Practice your introduction and your little spiel about your interests. You're going to feel like you're on "autopilot" at some point because of fatigue and how often you are repeating the same task. So, if you zone out a bit while speaking to a prof, you want to make sure whatever you default to saying is both useful and appropriate! Also, you may be nervous at the start of the conversation, so having something well practiced helps you start on a good note!