TakeruK

@fuzzylogician: Yes, you are right, I think the questions I'm thinking about and my perspective is different from Wonderer's. And I agree with you completely that my experience as an "international" student in the US is very different than someone from another country. But to clarify, my reaction to the accent training type things above is not mostly based on my experience as an international student in the US. Instead, the majority of the experiences I was drawing on when writing the above posts was actually from Canada. I was born in Canada to immigrant parents and English is the only language I am fully fluent in. But I speak it with an accent and combined with my physical appearance, many people assume I am not Canadian. I don't really care what people assume, but the frustration from the earlier post was when Canadians told me while I was living in Canada that I wasn't Canadian sounding enough etc. This continued when I move to the US too, but I wasn't viewing it from an international student point of view, because as you say, in this context, Canada and the US are the same and I'm sure Asian-Americans have similar experiences in the US as I did in Canada as an Asian-Canadian. But again, you are right that practical concerns about being understood is different than what I was writing about. I have also remembered another thing I do to help myself be more understood. Sometimes, I find that strangers (who would have the most difficulty understanding me) might find it hard to ask me to repeat myself because they are afraid of seeming rude. So, sometimes, I find it helpful to just start by saying it's okay to ask me to repeat myself if you don't understand me. I often spin this in a positive way, like "I'm really excited to be speaking about this topic today, so if I am going too fast, please feel free to ask me to repeat myself" etc.

Thanks for pointing this out. You are right that I am able to have my point of view because of some privileges and that I did not think about this when I wrote it. The people that have suggested accent classes to me did so because I don't sound like the typical academic in my field. They literally told me that I should change my accent because I don't sound like a scientist in their point of view. Maybe I have a different view of accent reduction classes because my experience with them has always been in the context of "You don't sound like a real Canadian/American, here, take these classes so you sound more like us". That is, they assume that because of the way I sound, combined with the way I look, that I did not grow up in an English speaking country and should learn proper English. I do agree with you that when I learn a new language, it does make sense to do all of the things you wrote above. When I learned / am learning French, I do actively try to modify my accent to pronounce the French sounds as best as I can.

I speak with a combination of an accent and a slight speech impediment, which makes it more difficult for someone who has just met me to understand what I'm saying. I share the same concerns when I really want to be effective in my communication with a group of strangers, such as conferences and teaching a new class. My strategy is to separate the parts I have control over and the parts that are just part of who I am. For example, sometimes it's hard to understand me because I am nervous or shy so I mumble or speak really fast. I work hard on changing that part because I don't want to be unnecessarily shy/nervous. So, I work on building my self-confidence. I practice my oral presentations a lot so I am not nervous. It's a little bit of a cycle because worrying that I am mumbling or speaking too fast makes me nervous so then I mumble and speak too fast! To ease my worries that I am not communicating clearly, I may use other methods to communicate to supplement my speech, such as writing out key words on the board when teaching or having key phrases appear on my slides when giving a presentation. For the accent part though, I don't do anything. I think accent reduction classes are terrible. I should not have to speak with your accent for you to understand me. And in fact, everyone who takes the time to actually listen to me and get to know me can understand me. So, no thanks, I'm not going to "learn to speak like an X" (where X is American, Canadian, whatever) just to make your life more convenient!

I think this is a great idea and I'll try to make some time to write a submission this summer Our school approached the grad students about our interest in doing something like this as a way to show what grad school is like! The goal was to highlight the diversity of grad students---different backgrounds, different ideas of success, different experiences, etc. We wanted to show people that you didn't have to be one type of person to succeed in grad school! We were really excited about this but then we learned that the grad school basically wanted us to write about specific things only and it sounds like there would be heavy moderation in what they were willing to publish. I guess it's understandable because they were viewing it as a recruiting tool primarily (and potential privacy concerns). So unfortunately that died, but I'm glad to see that Letters from Grad School is a thing!

Since the journal gave you the choice, then it's really just your choice Also, keep in mind that despite our best intentions, the whole paper writing process might be slower than expected and by the time the paper is actually published, you would have started your PhD so when readers see your affiliation, it would be the correct one. Personally, in your shoes, for now, I would just put the MA institution and if/when I become affiliated with the PhD school and use PhD school's resources to complete the manuscript, I would add the PhD institution as well. But again, this may be a field specific thing, where my field is not at all shy about having multiple affiliations per person. For amusement, here is a recent paper in my field, showing an extreme case (probably the highest density of affiliations to authors I've seen): http://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.03107v1.pdf

The percentiles change every year and show how your scaled score compares to other scaled scores for test takers in a 3 year period. Each summer, ETS publishes a guide for interpreting scores. The most recent edition, for the 2015-2016 school year, can be found: https://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_guide.pdf. In this version, the percentile scores show how you rank vs. other test takers from August 1, 2011 to June 30, 2014. Note that this is not quite a full 3 year cycle because the Revised GRE came into effect on August 1, 2011. When they update this for the 2016-2017 school year, I expect the percentile scores will reflect how a scaled score compares to all test takers from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2015. This is a new 3 year period and since the Revised test is so recent, this could mean a change in percentile scores that's bigger than most years. But it's not certain. Note: The reason why I think it's a 3 year cycle is because this is how they do the Subject test scores and this was how they did the General GRE score (before the Revised General GRE). Anyways, my point is that don't be surprised if the percentile scores that show up this fall are different than what is shown now, because ETS has not yet released the tables for 2016-2017. If the AW scores were exactly the same, I would go with the 147V/154Q score instead of the 148V/150Q score because the 4 points on the Q is a bigger effect than 1 point on the V. But I do think that both scores are quite similar. You might also consider sending both sets of scores since they are so similar. If your second test (148V/150Q) comes with a AW score of 4.5 or higher, then I think the second set of scores is stronger than the first.

It's nice when people come back with updates Thanks for doing that! It sounds like there is a good middle ground solution and I hope it works out for you. It sounds like the advisor was the only difference between the two programs and this solution removes that difference! Good luck on your first year!

With the "new" ETS ScoreSelect option, you get up to three options (I say "new" because this is a few years old now): 1. Send ALL scores. Self-explanatory. 2. Send MOST RECENT score. Sends only the most recent test score. The school does not know how many other times you took the test. They do not know what your previous test scores were. 3. Send ANY score. You can pick and choose any number of test scores to send. For example, if you took it 3 times, you could choose to send attempt #2, or attempts #1 and #2, or all 3, or any combination. Your school will only see the scores that you select, and they won't know if you took the test additional times but did not send the score. Now, there are two main areas of confusion: First, you cannot mix and match scores. So, if you took the test twice, April 2015 and January 2016, you cannot for example, send only your Q score from April 2015 and your V score from January 2016. Each test date is a set that is sent together. Second, when you are using your free score reports on the test day, you only have two options: You can pick ALL or MOST RECENT. You cannot use your score report for the "ANY" option. This means that if you are on your third attempt, and you see that your Q and V scores are lower than e.g. your second attempt, you cannot use your 3rd attempt's free score reports to send the score from the 2nd test only. If you want to use the free score report and also show your best test score, you must use ALL. Otherwise, you can decline to send any scores, give up your free score reports and then pay for additional score reports after the test to send your best score only. For more information, google search for ETS GRE ScoreSelect.

I think you have to ask yourself: what is the goal of attending this masters program and what are your eventual career goals? If you are following the so-called "traditional" academic route, then I don't think the ranking of your Masters program should matter very much. It's pretty common (from my experience in STEM fields, but no experience in chemistry particularly) for PhD students to come from all sorts of undergrad and Masters programs. Honestly, as a Masters student, you are not there long enough and you don't do enough research for the ranking to make much of a difference. If you are following the "traditional" route, then your main goal from the Masters program should be to get into a PhD program, and in order to do that, you just need to demonstrate potential for research excellence and a strong foundation. The PhD program ranking will matter more for later career options. So, with the new TA offer from George Washington U, I don't think the increased rank from Rutgers is worth the extra costs you will incur, in my opinion. But maybe someone in chemistry knows enough about those two programs in particular to comment? Finally, it would be a good idea to check out where Rutgers and George Washington University graduates go after their Masters. Similarly, you can look up the CVs of PhD students at the schools you'd want to go to for your PhD and see what types of schools they did their Masters in (or undergrad degrees in)

In addition to what the others above said, many fully funded PhD programs are funded by your TA work (maybe not every single year, but perhaps some of the time). I would say that in general, the money you make TAing (i.e. either to reduce program costs in your case or to contribute to a fully funded program) is worth the time it takes away from your studies.

I agree with the other posters. LOR #1 is a great choice. LOR #2 is an okay choice. Your current #3 is a bad choice, not because they are not in CS (in my opinion) but because they don't know you academically. LORs are not personal references, they are professional references. Did you do any research at all in a different field? Going into my astronomy masters program, I had a LOR from someone in medical physics because that was one of my undergrad research projects. You don't have to worry about sticking to only CS folks, but if you go outside of the field, choose someone that you worked with and knows your work well. Your work supervisor might be a good choice here, if your work is an academic field (again, doesn't have to be CS, although that would be ideal), and if your work supervisor at least has a degree beyond the BA/BSc and/or a lot of experience. Otherwise, I think you should get to know professors in your department this fall when you are back in school taking courses. A letter from someone you simply took a CS course from is not ideal, but it would be better than your current choice #3 and better than your work supervisor if they don't meet the above properties. I also agree that it's worth it for you to interact with your LOR choice #2 more this fall and get to know them better. Maybe even set up some appointments to talk to them about your grad school plans/goals etc. Overall, even though it sounds like you want to mostly take math courses this fall, I would say you should hang out around the CS department as much as possible and be a part of the community. Maybe you can even find a small job as a research assistant. Join the student clubs and interact with the grad students, faculty, undergrad students, etc.

I think there may be some differences in different fields. I have tried a few different things but I find that scheduling time to write has worked the best for me. But, I'm also a type of person that thrives on partitioning my time into chunks and then carrying out that schedule. For my projects, I typically spend a lot of time working on the research aspect and then transition to writing. I would say this happens when about 80% of the analysis is complete. Writing is hard for me, so I tend to try to procrastinate, which means when it's time to be writing, I'll often find other things to do instead of write. For example, I might try to get a little bit more analysis done. Or, since I work on multiple projects in parallel, I might try to work on another project instead. Pretty soon, I'll find that a whole week has gone by and I've only written two paragraphs. To make sure I stop trying to analyze more data and actually get writing done, I now schedule blocks of time dedicated to just writing. Even if I am stuck, I don't allow myself to work on another thing. It's too tempting to switch to another task as soon as I hit a wall, but I find that I need to stare at that wall for a bit before I can overcome it, so scheduling specific writing times helps. I do take into account my work habits when I write though. I schedule these blocks for periods of times where I know I can think the most clearly and where there are the least distractions. For me, I think the early afternoon is my best writing time. The morning is often too busy with checking emails, making sure I address any urgent things that might have popped up and then lunch is my socialization time. After lunch, I can feel like I've satisfied my work and social needs/responsibilities and I can block out the world and write for a few hours.

Indeed, you don't want to accidentally ask an illegal interview question! Or, due to different cultural norms, you wouldn't want to offend someone or make someone uncomfortable. Staying professional doesn't mean you only speak about research. A safe way to ask people about hobbies and such is to just discuss your own hobbies (remember that you're still in a professional setting so if your hobbies are things that aren't appropriate workplace discussion topics then pick something else!). Usually, without prompting, this is a typical cue for the other person to tell you about their hobbies too. And, if it's a postdoc candidate and a bunch of grad students, I'd say you can let the postdoc candidate take the lead on the conversation. If they really do want to discuss their research then go with the flow. If they start asking about things like "what do you do for fun?" or "what is your favourite restaurant in the area?" then you know what topics are good for discussion.

I am also of the opinion that graduate school and academia in general is actually work and you always have to do the work that has the funding. This is true in grad school (especially as Eigen said, this is about learning skills and developing experiences) but it will likely be at least partially true later on too. Unless you get a prize fellowship postdoc, you likely will be applying to specific postdoc positions where a PI has a research project in mind. Then, later, if you end up as a prof, you will be doing the research that you are able to win grants for. Of course, in these later stages, you have more control (in theory, if you are able to write a good grant, you will be able to do the work you want), but remember that everything is still driven by funding. And I think this is an important thing to remember about academia and research. It is not about freely pursuing whatever thoughts and ideas you come up with. It is a job and your work costs money. If academia was about doing whatever you wanted, then we would be stuck in the old days where the only people who did science were rich, old guys who had time and money to do whatever thinking they'd like without worrying about paying bills etc. I'm saying this because of what you wrote in the middle of your post: "For years, well at the beginning of my, I knew that no matter what career direction, I wanted to go to graduate school and study a topic that I was really, truly interested. My dream was to be PASSIONATE about my research; not do lab work as a chore, but because I genuinely wanted to. However... my graduate life turned out to be nothing like I hoped it would be. " So, my recommendation is to stop thinking about grad school (and academia) as a place where you are supposed to be following your passions and that the work you are doing is so amazing and lovely that it's not even work. Instead, the healthier mindset, in my opinion, is to first determine what exactly is it that you want to get out of graduate school. Is it a certain set of skills? Experience in a field/technique/model/experiment? Then, seek opportunities that meet these goals. The research topic should be secondary. I think the research topic only matters for two main factors: 1) don't work on something you absolutely hate and would be miserable doing (but you don't have to love it, just don't hate it), and 2) don't work on a topic that has no future in your field. Even if you really really love subtopic X, if the only people in the world doing subtopic X is a handful of people at a handful of schools, I'd say it's not a very good idea to make your career in that. Save your love for that topic as a hobby and pursue a career in the direction your field is moving. Finally, maybe you do know this but could it be that your experience so far has been affected by the bad working style fit between you and your old advisor? Maybe working on a topic you don't like as much would not be so bad if you had a advisor you clicked really well with. In fact, I often advise students to pick the better advisor fit over the better research interest fit, because you can change your research interests but it's very unlikely that you will change how your advisor interacts with you. I feel that my "job satisfaction" is much more influenced by my relationship with my advisor than what I am researching.

I would say there are two types of things I do to keep from burning out: things that take my mind off of my work and things that are work-related but gets me motivated! Things that give my brain a break from work: 1. Sports/Intramurals! I like intramurals especially because I get to play fun sports with my friends and colleagues. 2. Schedule down-time and stick to it. Unless there are deadlines coming up, I try to purposely keep myself from working on the weekend. 3. Take a vacation! Might be hard to do with limited time and money but I try to do something vacationy and fun at least once per year. 4. Take a "stay-cation". I added a new thing into my routine that I think works pretty well for me now. Once per month, I take one regular work day completely off. Usually it's a Friday or Monday so it becomes a long weekend. It helps me recharge! I find that my weekends are now so busy with errands and other aspects of being an adult that I am at work 5 days a week and then doing chores/errands on weekends means I don't get time for just myself. So, I figure I should take advantage of our flexible schedules and take one day completely off once in a while. (Note: I still work my 40 hours per week on average, so I just work a bit more on other days and take a day off! Many scientists working at national labs work an extra half hour each day and then take one day off every 2 weeks, which was where I got this idea). Things that are work-related but give me focus/remotivation: 1. Conferences: travel is tiring but I always feel super motivated and excited about my topic when I spent a week at a conference talking to people about my ideas and hearing their ideas. 2. Discussing ideas and papers with colleagues: There are lots of formats where this can happen. Some groups have group meetings, there are "paper reading clubs", or just informal interactions with your friends. When I see an exciting paper, I read it and then bring it to a friend and we chat about it. Sharing ideas and hearing what others are excited about gets me excited too! 3. Teaching or mentoring: TAing is a great way for me to feel like an expert and that is good motivation for slumps and other periods of time where I am stuck in research and feel like I can't get anything right. I also mentored undergraduate researchers in the past and that always motivates me too. 4. Outreach (all ages): Similar to the above, it's nice to talk to people who aren't researchers at all about your work. Hearing their interest and excitement motivates me. And, they often ask insightful questions that make you step back and look at the big picture. This also motivates me as it's easier to forget why you are so passionate about your field in the first place when you are stuck on the minute details. Overall, what keeps me going is not making work/school all about work. I don't want my office to be a place where I only go to for work! It's a place for me to socialize with others who share interests, a place for me to go and play intramural sports, a place for me to be part of the community (I volunteer on things like student government or other committees). Some people don't like this approach because it messes up their focus---they only want to work at work and do other things at other places. But for me, I always feel happy going into the office because I associate all these positive things with it, not just the tough times when your research doesn't work!

Hi there (I don't think I responded originally, but I do second everything fuzzy said). I understand your anxiety but it is worth it, trust me. In Canada, it is normal to attend different schools for a Masters and PhD and while the research fit at my Masters was great, the school itself lacked many opportunities and now that I am at a PhD program in the US, I am a lot happier in every way! For your first issue, I think you know that what you are worried about does not make a lot of sense, right? You are saying that you are worried about failing to get into a place that is a better fit for you? If you follow that logic all the way through, you should never apply to any schools that interest you, you should never apply for fellowships, grants, or postdocs, or even jobs that you might want because of the risk of not getting it. I understand that it's scary to try for something and then not achieve it. That said, I can sympathize! Honestly, I'm feeling a little bit of it myself....I will be applying for jobs this fall and I've been procrastinating looking deeper into the fellowships I want to apply to for similar reasons. But, we all know that in the end, we have to take risks in order to get what we want. Second, about the visa process, it's just red tape and bureaucracy. You are going to be a little bit more stressed over the summer, but it will really be worth it for you to have a chance at being at a school that sounds like the superior fit in all ways. Third, yes, I have seen situations like this before. It happens more often than you might think! I know that at my current US school, all admission offers are actually valid for up to 1 year, even if you already turned them down. So, I highly highly encourage you to contact this other school and see what can be done. Do it today!! As fuzzy said, time is of the essence because budgets and plans for the next year may be closing soon. However, even if it's too late to switch schools for Fall 2016, you can and should ask about Fall 2017. Maybe they don't have space this year but they can make their previous offer to you valid for next year. I would say it is well worth it to wait a year for the right school than to go to a less ideal school for you. If they can't reserve a spot for you, maybe it's better to just apply again for next fall. I think you have a lot of factors that indicate that there is a good chance that something good will happen for you if you ask about it. If you don't ask then you have zero chance of it working out. So, go and do it

Also, your sidebar says you are applying for programs to start in Fall 2017. These applications will be due around December 2016 / January 2017. I would think that it's far too early to be emailing professors right now. I'd wait until September or about 1 month after the Fall 2016 school year begins. The best time may depend on the field though. But I would doubt that many professors are thinking about the next round of applications at this point.

In general, winning previous awards helps you win future awards. So, it's not that the USRA specifically helps you get a NSERC/SSHRC/CIHR graduate award, but the fact that people who have won research awards in the past, such as USRA, means they are more likely to win more awards. Also, there is certainly a correlation between the traits that award committees look for (GPA, experience, etc.) and those who have won awards in the past. So, in your case, having other research awards will put you at no disadvantage compared to a hypothetical situation where you took the USRA instead.

@Laptopcase: Applications for Fall 2017 will be due in December 2016 / January 2017 so if you wait until you've been at your new school for 1 semester before deciding to reapply, it will be too late to get in good applications for Fall 2017. So if you are set on the "go to the current school and then reapply later on" then you should reapply for a Fall 2018 start, not a Fall 2017 start. This will give you at least 1 year at the new school to get a strong LOR. However, and I'm sorry that this will sound very judgmental from someone that doesn't know you. It might even sound a little condescending because you might have already thought about all of this. So you can skip the rest of this if you have already thought long and hard about it. It also gets personal so you don't have to respond to the questions here at all, it's more a list of things I think you should think about, having been in a similar situation in the past. First, what are your goals post-PhD and how do they mesh with your personal life? If your goal is an academic position (e.g. tenure track professor or something like that) then you need to realise that this career path means a lot of moving around. I'm not 100% certain if you are not happy with your new school's current location in particular or just because it's not the same location as your family, friends and SO. If it's the latter, then it's important to come to terms with the fact that you might end up for many years in a location separated from these people. There are ways to reconcile these things though. For me, my SO moved with me (we're married now) and we had made a plan. Basically, the plan is by the time 10 years have elapsed since the start of my PhD, we plan to live in the area that we grew up in (where our family also are) and that being in this area is more important to us than the type of job we work on. So, the goal of my PhD has always been to develop the set of skills and experience that will best qualify me for a job in a certain geographical area. Second, it's important to take stock of your relationships with your friends, family and SO. How important are they to you compared to the other things you want in life? If you have always lived in one place for your whole life, change can be scary and that's okay. So, if you are unhappy/afraid of change and this is causing your unhappiness, then it's likely this will go away after spending some time at a new city and making new friends. But if there are other reasons that require you to be in the same city then time in the new city will still make you unhappy. Basically what I am trying to say is part of growing up beyond undergraduate education is having new experiences and leaving behind familiar situations to take on new challenges. This isn't general advice that works for everyone, so if you are just nervous/afraid of new situations, I'd encourage you to take on the challenge and give the new school a try for a couple of years. If you will seriously be severely unhappy or distressed away from home (for example, maybe a parent is really sick and depends on you for care) then you would be better off not moving away. Third, I think it's important for you and your SO to have a talk about your future. Are they also an academic? Does their career also require them to move around a lot or does it require them to stay in the same city/state/country or is it flexible? How will you balance your aspirations with theirs? What compromises are you two willing to make? What aren't you willing to compromise? Are you thinking of marriage or other long term commitment yet? How does this affect your decisions on your career? Are you and your SO going to factor in the viability of this relationship when making career decisions? Are you two willing to be long distance? For how long? If you're both interested or planning on a long term commitment, what about things like: how will finances work? are you thinking of children? when? where do you want to live permanently? does it have to be in the US? in a certain state? within some distance of a city? etc. There are no right answers to the above questions of course, but I think that's something you need to get sorted out first before deciding what to do.

If you haven't already found this, I think this calculator is really interesting: http://aanandprasad.com/diversity-calculator/?groupName=women&numSpeakers=20&populationPercentage=10 I find that probabilities aren't always intuitive, and sometimes people will argue that "oh the reason we had no invited speakers that are women this year is just luck of the draw, only 25% of senior PhDs are women, you know" (just making up numbers here). But if you say there are 8 invited speakers at a conference and if the 25% number is true, the probability of having zero women is only 10%. And when you go to one conference after another and hear again and again that "oh we didn't even realise there are no invited speakers who are women, must just be unlucky" then you know that there is a problem with the way invited speakers are chosen.

This advice is for what happens when you already need to switch your schedule (above advice about what to do before travel is great). My usual plan for flights across continents is to take a red-eye that will leave during the evening (as late as possible) in North America and arrive in the other continent during the morning/early afternoon. Then I find that if I get at least 8 hours of sleep (doesn't have to be continuous) during the 11-16 hour flight, then I am good to go until evening in the other continent. I occasionally work the "graveyard shift" to do telescope work, where I have to shift my sleep schedule to sleeping at around 9am and waking up at around 4pm. When changing sleep schedule, I find that it's much easier to stay up tired than it is to go to bed earlier. I also found that I can effectively move my sleep at most by 4-5 hours each day without completely screwing me up. Normally, I am awake for 16 hours and sleep for 8 hours. On the first day of adjustment, I will try to stay up for 20-21 hours straight and then sleep for 8. Normally I go to bed around 11pm-midnight, so the first day, I'd still wake up at 7am like normal, but not go to sleep until 3am or 4am. By then, I'm usually super tired and it's easy for me to get 8 hours of good sleep. Then, the next day, I can move everything another 4-5 hours forward. Basically, I think my limit on being awake is about 22 hours in a row, and the best way to make myself fall asleep at a certain time is to set it up so that I am awake for about 20 hours by the time I want to sleep and then I go right to sleep. So, if I am falling asleep at 4am and waking up at 2pm, I would probably take a few days to move my sleep forward. Here's a plan that I might use: Day 1: Wake up at 2pm. Stay up until 9 or 10 AM on Day 2. Sleep for 8 hours. Day 2: Now I'd wake up at 6pm. Stay up until 2pm on Day 3. Sleep for 8 hours. Day 3: Now I'd wake up at 10pm. Stay up until 6pm on Day 4. Sleep for 8 hours. Day 4: Now I'd wake up at 2am. Stay up until 10pm on Day 5. Sleep for 8 hours. Day 5: Now I'd wake up at 6am (or I can sleep in a bit too). Now jetlag is defeated! (hopefully) This could take fewer days if you are able to sleep for more than 8 hours (i.e. you can do it in one fewer day if you're able to stay asleep for 10 hours).

Very unlikely.

Hello! Sorry to hear that you are unhappy in your location. You are right that being happy where you are is very important and it's perfectly fine to change schools because you don't like the location. However, there are a couple of things I think you should also think about in order to make the transition smooth. First, with very few exceptions, you do not "transfer" graduate school. So, when you start at the new school, you will likely start over from the first year. If you manage to get a Masters degree at a previous school, then that degree might count for some partial credit at the new school. However, especially at prestigious schools, you will likely have to start over from the beginning because they want you to meet their own program requirements. Because of this, I think the two best times to change are right now (i.e. 0 years passed) or after you get a Masters (~2 years passed). But make sure the program actually allows you to leave with a Masters degree. Not all STEM fields allow for getting a Masters degree while in the PhD track. Some programs grant a Masters as soon as you finish the course requirements, others grant it after you get PhD Candidacy (usually after 3 or 4 years) and yet others will not award a Masters. Second, you say you are an incoming student---does this mean you have not started (or just barely started?). I don't mean to question your own judgement, but 1) why did you accept this school's offer if you don't like the location and 2) have you been there long enough to adequately assess the location? Maybe you have already thought deeply about this or maybe you have a different reason to prefer another location that has nothing to do with this school's location (i.e. family or personal reasons requiring you to be somewhere else). So, for the rest of this post, I will assume you are 100% certain that you want to leave, but if you just arrived, I just want to say it's sometimes normal to feel unhappy when you first move somewhere and get settled in. With that out of the way though, since you are an incoming student, did you have other grad school offers that you turned down when you accepted your current school? Are any of them in locations you would prefer? If so, contact these other programs right now. They might still have a spot for you in Fall 2016. Or, they might be full this year but they will still accept you for Fall 2017. Many schools will actually keep your offer valid for some time, even after you decline them. My school's physics program says all offers are actually valid up to 1 year, even if you say no (so if you go somewhere else for a few months then decide you want to go to my school instead, my school will likely still accept you). Finally, the stipend issue is tricky. If you are serious about leaving, then you need to tell your school, for two reasons: 1) ethics: I think if you have fully decided to leave the program, you should let the school know and 2) pragmatism: if you are applying to new PhD programs, you will need support (LORs etc.) from your current program's faculty. Once you tell your school, it's up to them to decide how your funding will be determined. They might continue funding you anyways until the end of your 2nd year. They might force you to switch to a Masters track and only fund you until the end of the first semester of your 2nd year, or some other deadline (i.e. if you don't finish all of your masters courses by then, you will pay out of pocket). Or, they could just end your funding altogether. It depends on the department and how funding works. So, this is why I think you are better off either leaving right now or staying for the entire Masters process if one exists. If you leave right now, your main options are to see if your other schools will accept you or just quit and reapply this fall for a Fall 2017 start date. Find something else to do between now and Fall 2017. If you stay for the Masters process, it will give you a year to prove yourself to the professors. It has some downsides though: 1) you will be in an unhappy location for 2 years potentially, 2) if you are already 100% certain you want to leave, then I'm not sure how ethical it is to stay for this long and get paid [on the other hand, if you are not 100% sure you want to leave, it's fine to re-evaluate the program after the first year and decide whether or not you want to leave with a Masters or stay for PhD], 3) you might end up not being funded for some part of your 2nd year, 4) you will need good LORs from your Masters program but telling people you want to leave might burn bridges and prevent you from getting good LORs, and 5) you will probably have to start again from scratch at a new program, "wasting" 2 years. Honestly, my gut feeling would say that if you feel so strongly against this location, you should just leave now. If you are not sure whether or not you will "warm up" to the program and the location, then re-evaluate this in one year.

The minimum is whatever your school defines as "full time status". At some places, this is 9 credit-hours but at others, it is more or less. Graduate students may have a different definition than undergraduates. (At my school, full time status is 36 units, which is equivalent to 12 credit-hours at most places).

Don't put the LOR here. What country is your student applying to? If it is a US school, then there are lots of resources online to help you write the LOR in the correct manner. You might also be able to speak to your colleagues about this too, if they have already written such letters. Here are some online guides from US schools for writing LORs for academic graduate programs: https://career.berkeley.edu/Letter/LetterGuidelines#academic http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/reader-response-roundup-5-principles-for-writing-effective-letters-of-recommendation-for-grad-school-applicants/29621 https://vimeo.com/7008854 http://www.natekreuter.net/archives/477 Also, here are some things NOT to do. http://phys.org/news/2010-11-letters-women-jobs.html http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/10/21/playing-from-a-different-tee-how-not-to-write-a-recommendation-letter/#.V2AgspMrJT4