TakeruK

I also think this is the reason. It's fine though, most of the material I have to read is also super boring to me. I just accept the truth: academic writing is boring! I motivate myself to read by treating it like work. Every job I've had in the past had a crappy part that I hated so it's not like I expect grad school to be 100% rainbows and unicorns. I set aside a time to read each day and it's a chore. But it's a chore I have to do so that I can do all the other parts of my job that I really love doing Other ways to motivate yourself to read are to form a reading group with your peers and discuss papers together. If you find a good group, you might end up only having to read 1/4 of the papers and just learn from the summary notes of the other group members. Or, you can sign yourself up for a journal club type thing where you have to present an analysis of the paper---sometimes pressure just makes you get things done. (Note: in this paragraph, I'm not talking about required/assigned reading for coursework but just reading the literature as background for your research or to keep up with your field).

Probably not a good idea, but I think some more details are necessary. If you are currently an undergraduate student and you want to apply to graduate programs and your labmates are either other undergraduate students or graduate students, then this is not an appropriate letter in most cases.

In addition to the above advice, you can also check directly with the school whether or not they need official electronic transcripts, or if unofficial electronic transcripts will do. If it's the latter, then it doesn't matter if the transcript reads VOID across the page because it's an unofficial one anyways.

My experience in grad school has been that almost all relationships between grad students in the same department have ended well**. So from my perspective, it's not just that something occasionally works. Instead, I would say that the really bad breakups where there is lasting drama/conflict and awkwardness is pretty rare. I can only recall one instance out of the 20-30 relationships I know of. ** To clarify, when I say "end well", I don't mean that they ended with the students married to each other. Sometimes a relationship is just meant to try something out and if it doesn't work, both parties move on to other things. Ending well just means that the relationship ends but both parties can still interact with each other as professionals. Maybe there are a few weeks of initial awkwardness between both parties and their social circles but if it fades with time, then it's fine. Also, maybe if the two students were friends before but are no longer friends after the relationship ends, that's fine too. The whole department doesn't have to be friends with each other! At one point, there was a department I know that had about 25 grad students and I think there were 5 or 6 couples within the department (i.e. almost half of the students were dating or married to each other). I think it was a fluke though, people graduated and the density of couples dropped soon after. (Although I wonder if there is significant confirmation bias happening here. Do I not remember the bad breakups because I suppress bad memories? Or do people remember the dramatic endings/breakups more than the relationships that just fizzled out? Probably some of both?)

I'm not in chemistry but most of my work is also computational, with occasional data-collecting using telescopes (sometimes involving travel, but I often also control the telescope remotely). I would say that in my first year, when I was taking classes, I worked about 20-30 hours per week on research and 30 hours per week on classes. There's no TAing in our first year here. After the first year/classes, I work about 40 hours per week when there's no TAing (we only TA one quarter per year). My TA work is about 10-15 hours per week, so in the quarters where I TA, I work about 30 hours per week on research. These numbers correspond to the majority of my work weeks, but in the first 4 years, there are probably 8-10 weeks per year where I work an extra 20 hours or so because of deadlines. This year (my 5th) is especially hard because I am applying for postdocs so I think I have been averaging 60 hours of work per week for the last 2 months now. The application season will end in about 5 weeks for me, which I am thankful for since this level of work/stress is not sustainable in the long term for me! So, my "average" number of hours worked per week is typically higher than the above. Also, I count everything I do towards my research progress as work, not just time in the lab/office. So, reading papers, writing research related emails, making flight bookings for work travel etc. all count. -- I think that in your case, you should talk to your advisor and ask them for more guidance if you need it. Let them know that you are interested in doing more work. I think 16 months in should be enough for you to start considering independent work: definitely not necessarily experienced enough to advise yourself, but usually in my field, grad students in their 2nd year start to become more independent in their use of time (i.e. find readings on their own, find training modules on their own, find out about conference/workshops on their own etc.) But this could vary by field so maybe other computational chem people here can help you. I did have some periods of time in my 2nd year especially (our quals are at the end of 1st year and committee meetings begin in year 3, so year 2 is a "slow" year) where I felt like there wasn't anything I could do to make progress. So, I filled those hours with additional reading and taught myself a new coding language (python). What I mean is that it's not abnormal/unexpected that you need to "be your own boss" and set your own research and educational goals and then motivate yourself to do the work for 40 hours a week (or whatever amount you think you should be working). When I did this, I still had weekly meetings with my advisor so I discussed my goals with them and they gave suggestions and guidance, but no one told me to read X paper or to learn python. It sounds like maybe more communication between you and your advisor would be helpful. So let them know how you are feeling!

It's definitely not a bad sign for you. In my field and at schools with plenty of money, it's possible that a faculty member to spend a bunch of money to pay for your flight and hotel stays so that you can visit. This might come out of a grant but sometimes professors have large start-up grants which they can spend on basically whatever they want or perhaps the department has some money in a department-wide pool for this. Often, this type of visit is combined with a seminar or a talk, so there's sometimes money from that source. For prospective grad students, I would say that while it's not common, it's also not that rare, for schools with the money. People don't just spend money on you for no reason though. So, this could mean that they are interested in getting you to apply to the school. It means that the professor is interested in you to be their student but it's not an admission guarantee. For example, the professor might be overruled by the admissions committee or maybe after the visit, they could still change their mind about you. But it's unlikely that they are doing this for every single person that is expressing interest, unless that department is just loaded with money. My advice is to treat the visit like an interview and do your best to impress them. And, you can also learn a lot about the school while you're there. It can help you decide how interested you are in applying and attending (if accepted). It's also going to help you write your application since if you know the people there better, you can write stronger essays, especially with regards to fit.

Ah, thanks for the clarification! My field has pretty much zero "translational value" since you're not going to be solving any of the world's problems or curing any diseases through a better understanding of exoplanets located hundreds/thousands of light years away It's just knowledge for the sake of knowledge (which does have indirect benefits, since astronomy often inspires other people to learn more about science and then they go and become a more useful kind of scientist :P). In my former field, it would be the difference between "pure physics" or "basic physics research" vs. "applied physics", but in Canada (where I was in this field), both basic physics and applied physics were funded by the same agency ("NSERC" = NSF) and were often in the same department (i.e. we just have Departments of "Physics and Engineering Physics") so for us, it was less of a difference

Fair enough. In my department, grad students in 2nd year and above will TA classes taken by 1st year grad students, so that's a power dynamic that's important to be mindful as well. But my philosophy is that you only need to disclose this when it comes up, and probably best for the one in the position of power to disclose it anonymously if possible. That is, if my partner was a student in the class I'm TAing (again, grad students TAing other grad students), then I would let the prof in charge know that one of the students (not necessarily naming who) is in a relationship with me and that I am willing to TA another class if necessary. Similarly, if a student was put on an oversight committee that actually has power over another student, then the student should excuse themselves and leave the discussion if that committee discusses their partner. (And where possible, make arrangements for an alternative committee member if they saw this conflict coming).

I think the rest of the post is good advice, but I would caution against automatically following this point. My opinion is that unless you are required to do this by department policy (although I can't imagine a department having this policy for graduate student couples), do not disclose this out of any feeling of obligation etc. It can depend on the relationship you have with your advisor though. If you have one where you regularly share personal stories then sure, go ahead and do it. Personally, I feel that matters like this are too personal for me to share with my advisor, but that's just me. However, if you do choose to share with your advisor, make sure your partner is also okay with this. I have never seen a department policy that even slightly discourages graduate student couples and definitely never anything to the extent of requiring disclosure (is this even legal?). The graduate director does not (and should not!) keep a little book of every relationship in their department. There are plenty of graduate student couples in my field, whether they join grad school together or meet in grad school. Generally, grad students do not have power over each other, so from legal and ethical standpoints, there is little reason to monitor or restrict these relationships. I'm speaking generally here, if there is a situation where a student somehow actually has power over another, then this doesn't apply of course!

Maybe I am just missing something, but I don't understand the terms "basic research" and "translational research" because I haven't heard of the second type before. Sorry if this is just a naive question. I originally thought you were using jargon specific to your field and that was why I did not understand, but now it sounds like the differences are of a scale much larger than I had thought? Or maybe not? Would you mind clarifying what you mean? As for getting letters / leaving programs, as you say, there are several different possible scenarios. Here is my perception of how good/bad they look. I am going to only discuss the professional outcomes here, even though you should definitely consider and balance both professional and personal goals (see next section for that). I kind of rank them here, but within each section, I think there's not a ton of differences. Best scenarios for you, professionally: 1. You finish a full Masters program at your current school (whether it's 1 or 2 years) and have 1-2 strong letters from this school, including one from your advisor. This letter should indicate that you are a strong researcher and good student, but you left because it was determined that the program cannot provide you with the training and skills that matches your goals. Maybe you even publish in these two years. (This is the best possible outcome and it will actually make you even stronger for your top choice schools in the future, I think) 2. You finish a full Masters program at your current school (whether it's 1 or 2 years). Maybe your advisor and you had a falling out because you decided to leave but you still have 1 really strong letter from someone else in the department stating something like scenario #1. Scenarios that may raise some eyebrows when they review your application but will probably not going to be the thing that makes or break your application: 3. You decide to leave after the end of your first year (or maybe after the current term, depending if you have TA obligations next semester). You tell your advisor right now and they agree to write you a letter that confirms the fact that you are leaving because your goals don't match the department's focus, and not because of any failure or problems on your part. Hopefully you have done enough with them that they can still evaluate one semester's worth of research (after all, this is the same amount of interaction an advisor may have with an undergraduate researcher anyways). 4. You decide to leave before joining a lab and your PI says they cannot write you a good letter because they don't know you well enough. You contact your other letter writers and explain the situation to them so that they can emphasize your strengths in future application. Maybe you can even get a generic letter from your PI or your department to confirm that you chose to leave because of lack of research fit, instead of being dismissed for performance reasons etc. And here are some cases where it can go badly for you in future application: 5. You stay for the full 2 years, get a Masters degree, but no one in the department writes any sort of letter for you. Also, no publications were possible. However, you can likely salvage this still by contacting old letter writers and explaining yourself in your new application. 6. You stay for just the first year and don't get any sort of degree at all. Your advisor and other profs in your department refuse to write any sort of letter for you at all. This doesn't mean you are doomed though, but it will put you at a disadvantage. However, you do have a compelling reason so contacting old letter writers and explaining your situation well in your SOP would go a long way. --- Ultimately, I think you have much more to lose, professionally, by leaving now than finishing enough of the program to get some research output and a degree. It is very important, in my opinion, to have strong letters from your current program, and it would be much easier to get this in your 2nd year in the program instead of the first. Also, by staying for at least one year, you may find that your research interests change. That is, although you are not happy with your research right now, if you move to another school away from your SO whose research attracts you right now, how do you know this will still be the case 3 or 4 years from now? Will you be in the same situation in 3 or 4 years? As for the personal reason, I don't think it is unprofessional at all. In fact, having your PI know this might help you because then it makes it clear that the only reasons you want to leave are because the research match isn't good and you aren't personally happy. (i.e. it's not a problem with them, their lab, the department, or you at all). It's just things that are out of everyone's control. That said, it might also be a good idea to think about your long term goals. Maybe this research area is not what you want, but if the school provides a great work/training environment and has the resources to build up your skills/experience, then maybe what you are doing here will maximize your chances to work in the academic job you want in the future that is also in the location you want (i.e. near your SO). So, maybe it could help to reframe what you are looking for in grad school---instead of happiness with current research fit, what if you view your current position as the best place to train for the future position that will make you the most happy? Whether this is realistic goes back to my first paragraph here---I'm not sure I understand how different your current lab's work and your preferred work topics are. Note: Eventually, my spouse and I would like to be back in Canada to settle down, but for grad school and postdocs, we are willing to live further away in order to have access to the best resources/training so that we would be the most qualified for positions near our family.

I know at least one person who got it in their first year of their graduate program. My advice is to apply in every year that you are eligible, it will make later years easier and you might get good feedback to strengthen your application next time around.

Agreed with fuzzy. And spelling out in full probably won't take more than 1 line, so it doesn't really save "space" to abbreviate it.

I will also say that it is very likely that your courses will not transfer. If you want to go to a new school, you're likely going to start over again, at year one. I also want to second @Butterfly_effect's point about the importance of mentorship and research fit over research fit/passion. I always say that these two things are important for happiness and productivity in grad school, however, it is much easier to change your research interests than your PI's mentorship style and lab culture. If you find a good PI and a good lab at a school/department that is a good fit for you, I'd hang on as best I could! From an outsider's point of view, it sounds to me that you are focussing too much on the little differences in research topics. To me, it sounds like your "dream project" and what your lab does is very similar, just not exactly what you were hoping for. Since I don't know the terminology of your field, I'd use an analogy. To me, it sounds like your ideal grad school project is to study the best pastry making methods because you want to make apple pies. However, the lab is working on making Beef Wellington, but part of a good Beef Wellington is a nice pastry crust, so they are working on developing pastry methods too! My advice for new and prospective graduate students is to avoid framing your research interests as a specific topic or research question. Instead, when picking labs in grad school, think about what are the things you want to learn by the time you leave. Grad school is a training ground---I think of it as an "incubator" for us to develop into independent scientists. So, I don't really care that much whether I work on making apple pies, cherry turnovers, or Beef Wellington. My goal is to develop good pastry making skills so that I can go out there and become an independent researcher. I also think flexible research interests is good for you personally and good for science overall. It's good for you personally because you will be able to "follow the money" and do whatever work that is getting funded. Having narrow interests in grad school means that you might have to adjust to this during postdocs and later in your career. That is, you might just get lucky and have the perfect fit project in grad school, but that's not always going to be the case later in life, so I wouldn't stress about it now. I also think it's good for science and academia in general to be flexible. If every scientist decided on research interests for life in grad school, our field won't be able to adapt to new discoveries and work on whatever is at the forefront of knowledge at a given time. Okay, so here is my suggestion on future steps: 1. Don't do anything now. You've only been here for a few months. You gain almost nothing from leaving the program right now so give it some more time. Do not contact the schools that did not accept you to see if they would reconsider you. They didn't accept you during the regular season, and they are unlikely to somehow change their mind. If there were schools that accepted you but you declined, then maybe there is a chance. 2. After 1 academic year in the program (e.g. the summer), re-evaluate how you feel about the research fit and the city and the lab fit etc. I understand your ethical concerns about staying longer knowing that you will leave, but I don't think it's a concern if you fully commit to keeping an open mind until next summer. No one will expect you to know within a few months whether or not you will stay. 3. If you do decide to leave next summer, you should tell your PI right away. This will give you the summertime to figure out the next course of action---whether it's to stay and finish the MS (and whether or not you will still be funded in the 2017-2018 year) or to just leave and take a job while applying for more schools.

Sorry to hear that they weren't super helpful. Unfortunately, not surprised For my General GRE, they gave me incorrect information about the test center that caused me to have much more worries than necessary! Good luck!!

Hello! Please don't post more than one thread on the same topic---I've removed your extra postings. I think it would be hard to make good suggestions without more information about your career goals. For example, is there a certain credential that you are seeking? Or, is the norm in the field to have a Master of Science degree and you're not meeting a certification but just want to have the same level of understanding as other science journalists? I don't know a lot of science journalists, but the majority of them have Bachelors degrees in science, and some of them also have Masters or PhDs in science. I think it might be hard to jump right into a Master of Science degree without a science undergraduate degree, unless you are in a specialized program for science journalism. But the majority of science journalists I know and have worked with have the same science undergraduate training as other scientists. I don't know if I just happen to know an abnormal group of science writers though, or whether this is normal.

Here is my honest feedback. I stopped reading after the first paragraph. It is very arrogant and condescending. In just 4 sentences, you manage to insult two broad groups of people: your former classmates in high school and "all adults".

My advice also comes from professors and it's a little different than Egnomic's advice. Because every committee, every person will have slightly different expectations and criteria, I don't like giving advice that is in the extremes. Depending on the program, a personal statement/SOP does not have to be 100% pure research & teaching. However, like any other piece of writing you do, there should be clear and well defined goal(s). For a graduate school application, the personal statement/SOP main goal is for you to convey why you personally would be a good fit for the department and why this specific department should accept you. This usually looks like a discussion of your goals in graduate school, your research plans/interests and what resource that the department has which will help you reach these goals. For the personal statement/SOP, the goals should be academic and career focussed. So, write about those primarily. The personal statement/SOP is an important part of your application. Especially for programs without interviews, it's one of two parts of your application where the school can evaluate you for your traits/"intangibles". The only other part is your letters of reference, but you have little control of that content. So, your statements are the only way you can control the qualitative part of your application. I know that at least in my field, more and more graduate schools are following studies that show evaluations that are the best at determining future success are those that include character traits and intangibles, not just quantitative aspects (like GREs, GPAs, etc.). So, I think there is space for non-academic things. If the school asks for both a persona statement/SOP and another type of statement (sometimes a "personal history statement") then I would write the non-academic things in the second type of statement. However, many places only ask for one statement, in which case I would still include a few personal non-academic details in the SOP where appropriate. But remember that your personal statement/SOP has a set of goals and everything you write should advance that goal. So, don't just include personal details for the sake of including them or because you want them to "get to know you better". The non-academic things i might put into a SOP are things like: why you chose this school (if there are non-academic reasons as well as academic ones), information about things in your application that might raise questions (e.g. a year off from school) etc. I did a weird thing where I started grad school in Canada under the different Canadian system and then applied to US schools and started all over again. But I had good non-academic reasons to do that, so I wrote a couple of sentences about that, demonstrating that I am deliberate and purposeful. However, in your particular case, I think you should rethink how you want to include your lacrosse team career in your SOP. I know what you wrote here is likely just a draft/first thoughts, but writing that you think your lacrosse team experience puts you "a cut above others who solely focused on school work" is not going to help your application. In fact, I think writing something like that will hurt your application. A sentence like that sounds to me like you think those who didn't do extracurriculars are literally beneath you. This is not a character trait that graduate schools look for in their cohorts. Your team experience is a great thing and my advice would be: when writing about your positive traits, aim to show your strengths without putting others down. You don't need to put down your peers and colleagues who didn't play a sport in order to highlight your own strengths. When you write about your lacrosse team experience, think about what the school may be looking for in their students (ask your profs if necessary) and write 1 or 2 sentences about your lacrosse career that demonstrates this. If I was evaluating students, here are some traits that a lacrosse player might demonstrate that I think would help make them a good graduate student: 1) being a team player, 2) leadership experience/ability, 3) commitment to practice/self-improvement, 4) determination/"grit"/ability to persevere in hard times. Just some thoughts on how you may want to structure your experience in the SOP. Of course, also consider what else you are writing in your SOP---if you are already demonstrating some of these traits in the other stuff you write about, pick the ones that your lacrosse experience can show that your other experiences cannot.

One last thing: don't forget to take time for self-care too. Find friends, family, etc. who will support you. If things get worse later on, ensure that you take some time to get this support and take care of yourself!

I know this is a hard time for you. Here's my advice. (Note: I have not experienced this myself but know others who have). 1. It's okay to say that you don't know what's going on with your PI. You are not your PI's personal assistant. You are also not their family member. Like @Sigaba suggested, you should pick a careful statement, practice it and say it to everyone who asks you about it. Something like, "I am not sure what is going on and I hope to find out soon" etc. Also as Sigaba suggested, you don't want to have it over-rehearsed, so feel free to alter your responses and be honest on how you feel with your close friends etc. but for the random people that will just ask you, I think it's okay to have the same 1-2 sentence answer. It's good that you are talking to the DGS etc. 2. It's nice for you that you had a really good relationship with your PI. But if your PI is on leave because he was harming other students, be mindful that your experience is different from others. Be very careful to think about your colleagues too---emphasizing how much you liked him could be harmful/dismissive to those did not have good experiences with him. Generally, the worst offenders are very "good" publicly and to certain students and terrible to others. So, just keep in mind that everyone will have different experiences. And that someone can be a very good mentor etc. but terrible in other ways. However, this is all assuming the worst case scenario. Maybe there's nothing inappropriate about his leave at all. But I'd generally play it safe and follow the advice here.

What program are you applying to / what field? Maybe people in these fields can give specific advice. In my field, we do not propose any research at the application stage. You figure out what your dissertation will be after a few years in grad school, not at the application stage.

It might be hard to find first year CVs online because at least in my field, people don't always get a website going until their 2nd or 3rd year. But as others said, a stats one isn't going to be that different from others and just imagine "less stuff" compared to established grad student CVs. The one big difference is that an applicant's CV may have more undergrad things listed while a graduate student's CV may remove some of the undergrad things that aren't as important (e.g. undergrad conferences etc.)

For schools that require three, I suggest you find any professor with any link to you who is willing to write a letter. It doesn't have to be that good, because not having that third letter will likely get your application auto-rejected, so a mediocre letter is better than nothing.

Hello! I had some similar concerns because I also needed to be on a J1 so that my spouse can work. Here are the answers as best as I know: 1. First, check their international student program website. At schools that support students on both F1 and J1, there will be information on students on F1 and J1 status. At schools that only support student F1, you won't find the J1 information. Note that many schools that don't support J1 students will still support J1 postdocs, researchers and professors, so ensure that you are reading the student page. Also note that lack of J1 support info online doesn't really mean there's no J1 support. Instead, if you can't find any information, and you want to know before spending your time applying, make sure you ask the school before you apply. Ask the international student program office, not the department you are applying to. Finally, when you do get an offer, before you accept it, confirm that you can be on J1 status. 2. For this question, I have no experience. When it comes to criminal convictions, I don't think J2 are any different than any other US visa but I'm not an expert. I think your best bet is to consult an immigration lawyer.

I agree with the above advice that you shouldn't get involved in whatever circumstances/situation that lead your PI to be on administrative leave. Don't defend your PI---clearly there are many things you don't know and most cases where someone would end up on such a leave stem from some serious misconduct that you didn't know about. You can hurt your own reputation by defending someone who has committed serious offenses. Another tricky thing is that sometimes not taking any sides can be considered taking a side. For example, if it turns out that your PI had inappropriate relationships with students, harassed them, etc. then being "neutral" in this sense can reflect poorly on you as well. There is little way for you to win while still being associated with this PI. So, I second the advice to talk to the DGS and look for another advisor.

Unfortunately, most of the fee waiver programs only apply to American citizens or permanent residents. I was not able to waive any of my fees for my applications. It sucks but applying to school does cost a lot of money At my school, we are working on ways to help reduce fees where possible but almost all programs are for US citizens or people from certain countries where income is really really low. That's okay with me though, I think these people need the support more than me. My application costs were high. About $100 per school. I had to get 3 transcripts because I attended 3 different schools (undergrad, masters, and another school to take a course as a visiting student). Transcripts cost around $35 for all three. So, for 8 schools, application + transcript was $1100. I had subject and general GRE, total cost of $400. I also had to travel to write the GRE, including a hotel stay, so that was another $150. Plus $100 for additional score reports to 4 schools. GREs cost was $650. So, my total cost was about $1750 for 8 schools. On the other hand, the schools spent as much, if not more, on me to fly me out and have me visit their programs though. I would not have wanted to make a life decision like this without visiting. In addition, compared to how much grad school will cost you when you are actually a student, $2000 in the long run is not a lot (i.e. many people could be earning thousands of dollars more per year if they didn't go into grad school). However, in the short run, it can be very crappy and I think it's something academia needs to fix because smart people may not be able to even afford applying to grad school. In order to afford the fees, I had to save up money from my paid Masters program (In Canada, Masters students are paid like PhD students in the US since you must do a Masters before a PhD).