TakeruK

I would not really worry about the "intellectual environment". I have been at schools with all sorts of rankings now and my opinion is that while these things could vary, the differences are quite small. In terms of colleagues and environment, I would be more concerned with one that isn't competitive, encourages collaboration etc. the most. I agree with @Chai_latte that my main concern would be resources. Not just for the professor in question (although being a chaired professor is good), but for the school in general. For example, when I was at a less funded school, students generally have to do a lot of TA work in order to earn their stipends. Many students worked 20 hours per week during the school year, so something like 600 hours per year. TAing is not a bad thing inherently (and I actually enjoy it and teaching!) but at many places the balance can be towards too much TAing. At my current school (a well funded one), our TA load is something like 100 hours per year. Another example is software for students. My well funded school offers all the licensed software for free to all of us, i.e. we get MATLAB, IDL, Mathematica, MS Office, etc. At my less funded school, we didn't get anything provided. If you / your research group needed something, the PI had to pay for it out of their grant. I'm glossing over a detail here, since at the well funded school, the software isn't quite free, but overheads from every prof indirectly pays for it. However, the difference is important to students. We don't have to worry about asking our PIs for permission to buy X. Finally, the reputation of the school does matter for things like drawing in good visitors and speakers. At my well funded school, people would visit us all the time. The best in our field would come to give lectures or to collaborate with their friends etc. So as students, we get a lot of chances to meet these people in addition to all of the great people in the program. I feel like every month (or even more often), there is a visiting person that is relevant to my research interest. At my less funded school, the people who were there are still great. But we had few visitors. So, your "network" is a lot smaller. I maybe met with someone who was relevant to my interests once or twice a year at most. That is, there is an environment difference, but I wouldn't say it has much to do with the people there. Instead, it has to do with the amount of money/funding that the school/department as a whole can attract (not just the prof) as well as the visitors the department brings in. This is why I was asking about the school's reputation generally, not just for your field. --- It sounds like you are leaning against applying here and feel a little bad about doing so. I don't think you should apply to any place out of guilt. So, if you are looking for "permission" or validation to not apply here (not that you need it from us strangers of course!), then go ahead and skip this school. All of your reasons and doubts are good reasons to not apply. This professor is probably really good but you don't have to apply there just because there is one professor that is really good. I think non-academic reasons to choose schools are just as valid as academic ones. If you have the time and money though, and you're not sure about it (i.e. you genuinely have some interest other than guilt) then you don't have too much to lose by applying.

To me, all of these cons are really big cons. But to clarify, you say that this school is barely in the top 100 universities in Chemistry/Biomedical engineering. But how does it rank overall? What type of lab space are available, etc. If it's still in the top 30 in terms of overall reputation (read: money) then I think it makes a big difference. My experience is that research impact/output is a combination of both talent and resources. I think that if you take one of the world's best researchers and put them in a place without enough resources, it won't be the same as their output at a top 30 school. This is a generalization but in your case, this prof has just arrived at the new school so it's not clear yet whether the prof's research impact will change. In academia, timing is important too. Sometimes you are just unlucky with timing. It sounds like this person could potentially be a great advisor but I think the timing for this year makes it too risky. However, I would still advise you to apply to the school if you have some interest in this group. Maybe a visit to the location and talking with the professor about research opportunities would settle some of these doubts (one way or another). You shouldn't feel shy about asking professors for letters even if they require scanning. I felt the same way too but I took it as a challenge to overcome my shyness on this aspect. You'll likely have to ask for similar things in the future!

It depends on the nature of the editing service. If they are writing your dissertation for you, then yeah, that's not ethical! But if the service is simply edits to things like grammar and spelling, then it is fine. My school offers a free proofreading service that will make spelling and grammar corrections to our dissertations (I think they have a contract with a proofreader). You can choose whether you just want edit suggestions or if you will allow the proofreader to directly make edits in your actual text for you (students are generally encouraged to choose the latter).

This is the time where many schools are sending out interview invitations and a common (un?)fortunate situation is having accidentally double-booked themselves for interviews**. So, I hope you'll indulge some unsolicited advice: Resist the urge to respond to interview requests immediately! Consider potential conflicts first. If you get notification via email, that's great, you can take some time to think about your options before sending that RSVP. If you are notified on the phone, then try not to commit to anything immediately (hopefully the caller will be considerate enough to not even ask you to make a decision on the spot). However, I would rehearse a line to ask for more time to decide in case you get that unexpected phone call. It doesn't matter if you are 99% sure you are free on that date, unless you already know the school in question is your top choice, practice saying something like "I am very excited for the opportunity to interview. I just need to double check my calendar." Then ask if how they would like you to confirm (call back? email?) and ask for a deadline. While waiting for interview invites, you should think about how you feel about each school and get a rough sense of how you would prioritize one over another. It may also help to know when schools typically notify you of an interview invite and also of their typical interview dates. TheGradCafe's "Results Survey" database is a great tool, and so is searching the forums if people in your field post their dates here. The point of this advice is that accepting an interview date and then asking to change it later can reflect poorly on you and cause you extra stress. Instead, make sure you are aware of possible conflicts ahead of time. If you get an invite from School A today but know that School B generally sends invites 2 days from now, and that in the past the A and B interview dates have overlapped, then I would wait a couple of days to see if School B responds before committing to any date with School A. If it would be too awkward to simply wait in (email) silence, it's okay to reply to "School A" a day after the invitation and say that you think the proposed date could work but you just need a little bit of time to ensure there are no conflicts. Then you can ask about a deadline (if one was not already imposed). (** To clarify, this is not meant to "out" anyone already in this situation! Just hoping to help out others).

Sometimes schools will present themselves inflexible at first in order to reduce the amount of extra scheduling/rescheduling they have to do. You're in a tricky situation because you say that School A and School B are equal to you, so the usual advice of asking the less favoured school to bend won't work as well. To answer your question in your second paragraph, I'd say that I wouldn't consider this a negative reflection on the school at this point. Here's how I would proceed: First, realise that you now have to make a small choice in favour of one school or another (but see the note at the end). I know you said they are equally desirable to you and it sucks to have to make a choice this early but ultimately, you can only pick one anyways! If you favour B over A, then ask School A if they can reschedule your interview. I think @dormcat's advice above is very good. If School A agrees, then problem solved If not, then follow the steps below (switching "A" and "B" and amending other statements about the other school as necessary). If you favour School A over B (or if you favoured A but A won't budge either): Next, I would try to separate the interview component and the visit component. Write back to School B and tell them again that you have already committed to a visit at School A (it's okay to name the school) for dates XYZ. Tell them that you understand that the visit is for those dates only but you are still interested in their program and that you would like to interview at another time on Skype if possible. The reason why I suggest this is because it will be the true test of whether their original "no" was a hard no or just them trying to discourage people from rescheduling. If they agree to interview via Skype on another date, then this is great news. You're still in the running for positions at both schools. You can worry about trying to visit the school once you are accepted and have a reason to need to visit. If you get an offer from them, maybe you can combine a visit to their campus along with a visit to something else nearby. If you end up visiting another school nearby, you should contact School B again and say that you're visiting School C on dates XYZ and you'll love to also drop by before or after those dates if possible. Sometimes they will be able to set it up (and pay for it too). In my field, we don't usually interview but we still have visits and schools have told me that they will only allow me to visit on a specific date, but once I arranged my own travel they were happy to be more flexible. You might encounter the same thing with School B---once they have accepted you, they might be more willing to recruit you! If they absolutely refuse to interview you at any other date and basically say that "if you don't drop the plans with the other school, then you won't be considered for our school" (it's okay to double check that they really mean this if they don't say it directly), then I think it does reflect poorly on that school. You'll have to really choose one or the other and I'd consider their inflexibility in my decision. Finally, regarding the first step, I originally wrote it with the intention that you should prioritize the school you really want more. I don't usually recommend "gaming" the system. However, if you want to consider another (risky) perspective and you still cannot decide between the two schools, then consider prioritizing the school that you think will be less flexible. Generally, I would say that prestigious schools with tons of money are more flexible than lower ranked schools with less money. So ask the school that is better off (in general) to bend. This is also a good time to follow the other part of @dormcat's advice. If there is a professor there that is interested in you, talk to them about an alternate date too. Usually whatever department policies can be bent by faculty members that want to recruit a particular candidate. Good luck!

Hi everyone, Just a reminder to keep our community a place where people can come to get information and support during their grad school applications and beyond. Disagreement is certainly okay but some recent actions here have veered away from constructive discussion. Thanks, TakeruK

@fuzzylogician: I definitely agree with you, especially on the point that the DGS/department shouldn't "force" a professor to take a student and it shouldn't be a sure thing that every student admitted must leave with a PhD. Perhaps I worded the last comment too strongly! And maybe it's just the way I interpreted the post, but it sounded a lot like the DGS isn't even going to try to help the student find a new advisor. To me, the suggestion that the DGS gave should be the last resort, not the first thing they suggest! I agree with you that the first best step is for the student to find a new advisor on their own, then the DGS might need to get involved to help facilitate things if the student is unable to get this happening. And if all that fails, then perhaps it is in everyone's best interest to move on and go elsewhere. (An example of how the DGS/department could/should help out without "forcing" anyone to take a student they don't want are things like having a departmental slush fund that pays for students that somehow end up without an advisor for a year---so maybe a professor didn't intend to take on the OP as a new student, but having an extra year to figure out funding might make the transfer go more smoothly etc.)

I think you should take their words at face value---there is no point in "tricking" candidates (not to mention that it would be unfair!). But "casual" dress should always be "smart"/"sharp"/"professional" for work-related events. So definitely not an old t-shirt, and no ripped jeans! (the following will be male-centric since that's what I know!): I'd interpret casual dress in the work setting to be something like a polo shirt (or a nice sweater or a casual button up shirt) and khakis/dark wash jeans/nice slacks. I think part of the reason why they say "casual" is to help people be comfortable and so that they don't show up in a dress shirt and tie! Basically, I would say you should think about what you would wear to work on a daily basis and then pick an outfit on the nicer end of that range. Your overall actions will be evaluated during the weekend, but not in the "Hunger Games" or other dystopian young adult dramatic novels sense It's not like the committee sets up a lunch for you and then gleefully sits back and watches how you interact and socialize with each other and take notes! They're not going to be watching out to see if you stand nicely in line, hand the person behind you a plate, or whatever. When I say you will be evaluated throughout the weekend, I mean things like you should not plan on being unprofessional or inappropriate at the social events or happy hours or dinners etc. Don't get drunk, don't insult people, etc. Just be yourself and be professional. As @jeanetics17 said, there are certain parts that are going to be more formally evaluated ("graded" if you will) and it's only those times you have to be "on". These times are generally the one-on-one (or panel, if appropriate) interviews with faculty and other scientists. The rest of the time, people won't give each candidate a "grade" on a lab tour or a campus tour or a lunch event etc. Instead, for everything else, the people you interact with might get asked to give an overall holistic impression of you. So you just need to be yourself, stay professional, stay relaxed and be interested! One last thing, about being interested. Don't treat the whole weekend like a test where you have to one-up the other candidates, or that you have to always ask a question at every tour to show off. There is likely going to be one person that does this in your group, but don't feel like you have to "compete" with them. If you do have a good question about something you saw, definitely ask it. It's good to show interest. But don't feel like you are forced to do so or it will sound very forced. If you are not a very extroverted person (most of us aren't!!), don't worry! You will have plenty of chances to show interest, ask questions, and demonstrate your competence during your interviews/meetings. Don't worry about "performing" in front the group. I would say there's more of a list of things to NOT do than a list of things to do. Just common sense things though. Don't play on your phone during the tour. Don't be rude/arrogant to others. Don't dress or act like a slob. Don't be hyper-competitive and act like you are in a dystopian young adult novel/tv show

I'm sorry to hear that things have not improved I am surprised that the DGS isn't taking your side more strongly here. Maybe now that you know this about the department, you might not want to stay for a PhD anymore, but finding a new mentor in order to graduate with a MS is not a very supportive action by your DGS. I think if you do want to stay for the PhD, you should have more support from your DGS! My opinion is that once a school accepts you as their student, they (the department as a whole) are responsible for providing the support to see you through your PhD, especially if your PI fails at doing this. The DGS should be helping you talk to other professors in the department and potentially start over as a new student in a new lab. I think if you want to stay here for the PhD, you should push for your right to stay and complete your degree as planned. This is a good time to push this because they are considering new students at this stage. It would be easier for a professor to take you into their lab instead of accepting a new applicant. And, if you are serious about wanting to stay, you should push harder on the DGS (although still keep it professional because you'll want a letter if you go elsewhere) because the worst that could happen is that they say no and then you'll know you don't want to stay another 4+ years at this department anyways. Just my two cents.

I would not worry because if the system says "application submitted on..." that means that it received your application and everything is fine. That's my opinion though, if you are worried and the only thing that will ease your mind is confirmation that you'll still be considered, then you should email the entity that runs the admissions portal (sometimes it's the University-wide Graduate School, and others it's a department-specific portal so then you'd email the department person).

After seeing @fuzzylogician's second reply, I want to clarify that the reason I think it's okay to (indirectly) ask about other applicants is to determine whether or not the interview is a serious culling phase for admission, or if it's mostly to have one last check before they admit someone that looks very good on paper but isn't the same in person. So, I would ask the question expecting an answer like "about 1/3 of interviewed candidates should expect to receive an offer" (i.e. it's a real interview meant to thin out the candidate pool) or "90% of interviewed candidates should receive an offer" (i.e. it's just one final check). If paying for interviews is the norm in the field, then I wouldn't fly out for the interview if it's still a big part of my evaluation. As fuzzy said, I don't think the difference between in-person and Skype is enough to be worth that much money (unless you can combine several schools in one visit or something). But if it's the 90% case, then I might consider flying out (especially if there are other schools to visit at the same time) because it's also a chance for me to evaluate the school and determine if I would like living in the city and the new country etc.

In your case, I think it is okay to ask something like "what fraction of interviewed candidates are typically expected to get an offer?" and explain what you just explained here about travel expenses (they should understand that you may not want to pay for hundreds or thousand+ dollars if your chances are like 20%). But this is just my opinion, it could be the case that the person you ask will not receive your question well. (I also think that it is unfair to have in-person interviews where the candidates pay out of pocket because as you are experiencing, it gives a disadvantage to those who are not able to come to campus!)

You should read all dates and time formats in the local convention of the school. In the US, numerical dates are always month/day, so 12/1 is December 1. In Canada, we mostly use Day-Month, however, both formats are common so you'll very rarely see numerical dates (the US seems to really like to abbreviate things!)---you'll see 1 Dec or Dec 1 instead. Same thing with times. If you see a time listed, assume it's in the time zone of the school unless listed otherwise!

My letter writers submitted 8 letters each for grad school. It's normal to be expected to fill out tons of these letters (at least in my field). November-December is a fun time because you hear undergrads complaining about grad school apps, grad students/postdocs complaining about postdoc/faculty apps, and professors complaining about all of the letters they have to write for the undergrads, grads and postdocs! Everyone is in the same boat

I have not yet encountered a place that charges both pet rent and pet deposit. The deposit can be set to whatever amount (in California the legal limit is three(!!) months rent but in my town, rent is like $1500+ per month so the deposit is usually more like $1000). So, you should certainly find out if there will be extra charges for pets before renting, but I wouldn't tell them ahead of time that you are getting a pet otherwise they might try to add it into the deposit.

The requirement for J-1 status is that the "majority" of your income comes from sources other than personal funds. It does not have to be 100% university funded. And, it doesn't even have to be government funded. Note: Many government funded programs, such as the Fulbright, require you to also be on J-1 status (and they'll sponsor you rather than the school), however, this does not mean all government funding results in J-1 status (and the converse is also not true, i.e. being on J-1 status does not require government funding). Since it's up to each school to decide whether or not to sponsor you as a J-1, some schools will set additional requirements on top of the minimum requirements determined by the US Department of State. For example, I remember seeing some schools that count "majority" funding as greater than 50%, but other places will only sponsor J-1 if at least two-thirds of the funds comes from non-personal sources. Other schools will only sponsor J-1 postdocs but not J-1 students.

It's still pretty hard for a landlord to actually evict someone. You'd have to break your lease and/or not pay rent (which is part of breaking your lease). However, in practice, there are many ways a landlord can force someone out. For example, they can just choose to raise your rent by some amount that makes it no longer desirable to live there. There are no rent control laws here in my part of California, so bringing rent to $200/month above the market rate is an easy way to force someone out. In Ontario, rent raises were regulated and they only went up by inflation each year. In this way, tenants are protected because even if the market rate goes way up, if you've already been there, you get to stay locked into your low rate. Another shady practice that landlords here use is forcing tenants to repeatedly sign fixed-term leases. In Ontario, the usual lease was for 12 months and then after that, it automatically switches to a month-to-month lease on the same initial lease conditions unless both the tenant and the landlord chooses to sign another fixed term lease. This basically means that once you sign a lease, you are allowed to live there indefinitely as long as you follow the lease. In California, this doesn't automatically happen (some landlords do this but not all). Instead, what many landlords do (and I consider this exploitative) is after your first fixed-term is up (let's say it's 12 months), they only give you two options: either sign a X-month fixed term lease or switch to month-to-month at a much higher rate (like $500/month higher). And each time, the "X" could be different, because the landlords want to avoid having a whole bunch of units unoccupied at the same time etc. so they will ask for things like 9 month or 11 month or 13 month leases to achieve that. Ultimately, I think the main difference in the laws in my province in Canada and my current state in the US is that my former home had laws that valued the tenant's right to a home over the landlord's right to run a profitable business while my current home has it the opposite way. But as others said, this is something that varies that the province/state level so different places in Canada and the US will have different rules.

In many places in Canada, the rules are much more renter-friendly too. In Ontario, where I lived last, the was a law against "no pets clauses" in lease agreements---so like in France, the landlord has no say over what pet you have unless you have a special breed or break the law with the pet. In (my area of) California, landlords seem to want to repaint all the walls and replace the carpet after every tenant moves out. This costs most of the deposit and unless you stay in the apartment long enough to argue that it's regular wear & tear and the carpet would have needed to be replaced anyways, this will come out of your deposit. For example, the state law suggests that paint is good for 3 years, so if you live in a place for 2 years and the landlord decides to repaint, they will charge 1/3 of the cost towards your deposit. Same thing with carpets etc. However, the # of years thing is not regulated by law. The landlord could easily say that the paint is meant to last 5 years and since you moved out after 2 and they want to repaint, they will charge 60% of the cost towards your deposit etc. The only thing that the law requires them to do is to actually do the work that they charge you, i.e. you can ask for invoices to prove that they actually repainted for the next tenant. But most landlords have their own staff that they pay to do the work (say, minimum wage) but then charge the prevailing market rate for hiring a painter to come and do the work so they basically get to pay themselves to work on your unit with your money. I found it extremely frustrating compared to the laws I'm used to in Canada but I guess that's the nature of US capitalism. In Canada, the cost of maintaining the unit and running credit checks etc. are considered business expenses that the landlord is supposed to pay for the privilege of running a business. However, in the US, all of these costs are passed directly to the renter and we have little recourse in the courts. Ultimately, I only got something like $300 out of my $1300 deposit back ($800 deposit + 2 cats at $250/each). Taking them to court would not have been worth the time and effort (which is probably why they are able to do this). The lesson learned is that we didn't really have to bother cleaning the normal wear & tear off the walls and carpets since they were going to make us pay to replace them anyways.

You don't have to state how you love something in your SOP. What @avflinsch said is good advice on what content to put into a SOP. Another piece of advice is to "show, don't tell". So, don't just say "I love studying X" because everyone can say that. Instead, you want to show the reader that you are passionate about your field of study by describing your past experience and education and hobbies etc. in a way that demonstrates this passion. So, it is a little bit like an autobiography in the sense that you want to tell a story. In this story, your goal is to convince the reader that you want to attend their school and that their school and your interests are an excellent fit. So, you pick the narrative and the subjects in your story to demonstrate these ideas. However, it is NOT like an autobiography in the tone. Maybe it depends on the field, but the SOP should not be a story of your personal life. Most autobiographies will begin in childhood and tell personal stories that focus on your feelings along the way. They are often written in a very familiar tone so that the reader will connect with the author on a personal and emotional level. An SOP shouldn't take this approach. You want to focus on your academic life, not your personal life. So, you should generally start your story in University/College (unless you did some relevant work in high school). You should also write about your achievements, your experience, your failures if relevant, and what your goals are. Unlike most autobiographies, you will want to stay away from your feelings because the goal isn't to get the reader to connect with you on an emotional level, you want your reader to envision you as a peer and colleague in the workplace. This is not to say that you aren't allowed to interact emotionally or experience feelings in a graduate program of course! But in the limited space for an SOP, I'd focus on what you've done and your reasons for the decisions you have made in the past.

@Yanaka: Rent for pets vary a lot from place to place. Where I live, it's normal to have an additional deposit for cats. There was one place that was $250 per animal as an extra deposit. And the landlords here seem to be able to find every little reason to keep your deposit, so basically one should treat a security deposit as an additional fee and just average it out over X months as additional rent (if you stay for 2 years, then $250 is only $10 more per month though). Some places here will charge additional pet rent though, which is usually much more than the deposit---I see numbers around $50/month.

Oh no I am sorry to hear about losing your materials but I am glad you are not hurt. It sounds like you are back at your university now? Were you able to get any help to replace your phone, laptop etc.?

Writing grants is very tricky. It's a very different style than journal articles and initially, I had the same problem as you! I was writing way too conservatively and the majority of the first round of comments were in the vein of "your ideas are interesting and exciting, so make your writing match this!" Here are some tips I keep in mind while writing proposals now: 1. As fuzzy said, the most important thing is to show the review committee how your proposed work sits with the current body of knowledge in the field, and what new ideas it will bring. Novelty is important and exciting (at least in my field). Emphasize why your work is different from previous approaches. 2. In more mainstream academic writing (e.g. when I write journal articles), adjectives and adverbs are usually avoided or used very sparingly. In proposal writing, feel free to use more adjectives (to a reasonable extent). Adjectives can be useful in distinguishing your proposed work from current research and create emphasis on key points. 3. Keep everything positive. Yes, you want your proposal to be accepted over other ones, but don't write things to imply that your work will be better than the other competitors (obvious, but just saying!). Also, when distinguishing your work with what previous researchers have done, do not write anything bad about the previous work! Your reviewer may be one of these researchers (or collaborate with one of these researchers). Where possible, frame your proposed improvements as additions to the previous work, rather than replacements. e.g. "Using technique X, Smith et al. (2009) were able to find planets as cold as 2500 degrees and discovered [[important result A]]. With our new imaging technique, our proposed survey will find planets between 1500-2400 degrees, allowing for the first possible test of [[Hypothesis B]]." (I've read proposals where the authors would write something more like "Smith et al. (2009) failed to find planets cooler than 2500 degrees, ... etc.")

This advice is also field-specific. In my field and I would say for most physics and physics-related fields, I would advise against uploading either document as a supplementary document. If it's a published document, then providing the bibliographical information (or link to pre-print) in your application materials will be enough. If they are interested, they will read it. If they are not going to bother following a reference, why would they read through 10+ pages of extra material? For the non-published work, I would not bother including it because I do not think non peer-reviewed documents are interesting to the admissions committee. Again, if this is something they want, they would ask for it in the main materials. Finally, many schools in my field explicitly ask you not to put unsolicited publications, reports, papers, writing samples, etc. as supplementary information. So check to make sure they aren't asking you to refrain from doing this. Just providing my perspective from my field. I'm not sure what you are working in, and maybe it doesn't apply to your area. But I wanted to share in case it did.

This is an interesting idea, but a warning: many professors are neglectful of their actual physical inboxes. I've seen professor mailboxes overflow and/or piles of letters (unopened) sitting on professor desks. And some professors get so many letters from random people asking for admission, a cure for X, to review their new theorem Y, etc. that many letters from unknown sources go unread/ignored.

I don't think the GRE should take 3 months to prepare, but it depends on your current ability and what scores you want to achieve. If you are really interested in that Feb 1 school (i.e. if you get into that school, you'll be likely to accept it over other offers you may get next year), then it's not too late to apply if you are already doing well in the GRE. Many schools have outdated or just wrong information about GRE scores and timings. It only takes 10-15 days for a school to receive your scores, so if you write the GRE in early January, there should be plenty of time. If you can devote about 30-40 hours to prepare for the GRE between now and early January, then you should also be fine (again, though, this depends on how you would score now vs. your goal scores). Asking now for letters on Feb 1 is also reasonable. However, you shouldn't do this if you aren't sure that the Feb 1 school is the right fit for you. Taking another year will give you more opportunities next year (so, unless the Feb 1 school is one of the best opportunities, no need to rush it). If you wait a year, I would recommend letting your potential letter writers know about your plan to apply for Fall 2018 in a couple of months (after they have written letters for people applying in Fall 2017) and continue contact with them throughout 2017.