TakeruK

I agree with rising_star and St Andrews Lynx. Since you are probably not in a role where you must report all sexual assault incidents to the Title IX office, if you want to be a good friend to A, you should be there for A as A's support. Find out what A wants you to do and be their rock. No matter what A decides to do, it sounds like the near future will be difficult for them and maybe what they need from you the most is to be a solid support for them. It's not your job to be the hero that fixes the problem, or your job to mend any relationship, and as I said above, not your job to report it, or to punish C, etc. etc. Your main job, I think, is to be a friend to your friend and be their support and let A make the decision for themself. I also agree that this goes way beyond the DGS or anyone in your department. Unless A wants to you start there, the only person I would talk to is the Title IX coordinator (if A wants you to come forward with this information). One exception is that if you think C is a danger to the community and that by staying silent to honour A's wishes, C could end up hurting other people. This is a dilemma that would be very difficult, because you would have to choose between doing right by your friend and doing right by your community. Finally, take care of yourself too. At my campus, the counseling center is a confidential resource, which means you can go to these people with the description of the incident like you came to us here and you would have professionals talk you through how to process all of these conflicting thoughts and concerns and give you advice. A confidential resource like the counseling center means that they will not take action based on what you tell them (except for specific circumstances due to certain laws but I don't think they apply here). Note that Title IX offices are non-confidential resources. This does not mean that they will blab about the incident, "non-confidential" in this sense means that they will be very discreet but they will likely take action to protect the community if you tell the Title IX office about this.

In addition, money is not the only resource that graduate students cost. It takes a lot of people's time (especially your advisor's time) to train a graduate student. At more prestigious schools with lots of money, this could even be the main limiter in how many students they accept. So, having your own funding is a good thing but it doesn't guarantee anything.

Check with your school. At my school, you are able to finish any immunizations etc. after you register and arrive. They just want the forms completed (and a plan to get required immunizations), not necessarily all immunizations administered. But this depends so much on each school/state so you will have to check.

In my department, we generally keep the bulk of the conversation at lunch and dinner away from the visitor's research. This is because we often also have 30 minute time slots for one-on-one or small group meetings, which are generally all about research. And, usually the visitor has back to back meetings scheduled during the entire day where all they will talk about is their research. I'm not saying that we can never talk about research at a lunch/dinner, but generally the meal time is supposed to be a break time for the visitor and also a chance for grad students to learn some other insight. So, we would often ask about things like "How did you decide that you want to be a postdoc?", "Do you have any tips for the job market in field X?", "What is it like to live in [their city/their university/etc]". Or maybe get advice on fellowships for grad students, etc. I'd say that the meals, in my department, are more for us to know the visitor as a person rather than as a researcher. Additional tip: I find that one of the easiest ways to open a conversation is to ask about their travel to your city and like kimmibeans suggested, ask them "is it your first time in [city]?" etc. Usually once the conversation starts to flow, it will naturally find interesting topics

I think it is important to seek schools that have resources to help you succeed so I do think you are on the right track to think about finding a school that will support you. I also want to second fuzzy's advice that you do need both resources to help you succeed and a program that will match your research interests. And I think fuzzy rightly pointed out that on this forum, the expertise and knowledge will mostly be about the research side. But that doesn't mean you should not seek out schools with notably good resources in parallel. I can connect you with people who can help with this part. There are groups of people (e.g. the Equity and Inclusion in Physics & Astronomy facebook group) that exist to help connect students like you to the resources they need. The point of these types of groups are to link up people who care about these issues across a large number of institutions around the world, and many of these people will know about the climate and resources available at their school. So, if you would like to go down that path or at least explore your options, send me a PM and we can figure out what to do next. I can present the question to these resources for you, or introduce you to some people, etc. But this is probably better done in PM so just let me know if you'd like that. Finally, you probably do know this already but just a reminder that everyone's experience will be different and personal. So, it's hard for me (or anyone) to say that School X knows how to work with autistic students because what one person needs could be very different from another. So, I wouldn't necessarily go by generalizations about a school but instead evaluate each school based on how their resources can help you.

Maybe it's just that different words mean different things to different people, but I don't think debate is generally the right action to be taking either. I agree with what @MarineBluePsy says about debate vs. arguing in terms of respect. But I think there are additional terms to consider. For example, debate vs. dialogue (see: https://ginsberg.umich.edu/content/debate-vs-dialogue-vs-discussion). In brief, the main differences are: Debate is more "combative" and the goal is to show the other party that your point of view is correct. You listen to the other party to seek flaws in their argument in order to strengthen your own. Dialogue is "collaborative" and the goal is to work together with the other party (or parties) to come to an agreement. You listen to the other party to seek common ground and to learn from their different perspective. Both of these forms of communication are important in scholarly interactions with our colleagues but they have their own time and place. I think a lot of awkwardness and bad interactions happen because one or more parties mistakenly take the "debate" route when it's not the right time to do that. In my opinion, the majority of interactions in a collegial environment (i.e. everyday conversations with your colleagues, classroom interactions, seminar interactions etc.) should not be debate but instead be "dialogue". I think that in order for a "debate" interaction to be useful to both parties, both sides need to agree that this is what is needed. For example, if there is a disagreement within the research group on how to interpret X, it would make sense to agree to hash it out and figure out which interpretation is correct. In doing this, both sides agree to a "debate" in order to seek the truth. Generally, I think it's better to approach interactions as "dialogue" by default and only engage in "debate" when both parties agree there is a need for "debate".

This would be my choice too. I'd love to not have to choose between living in a place I like and working at an institution with the resources to advance my career!

I hope someone from the UK can answer your question, but if it helps, Canada taxes my US stipend according to Canadian rules on what counts as taxable income (like the UK, Canada does not tax PhD stipends) so every year I file a nil income tax return (and get some rebates too, for being a low income taxpayer). In my opinion, I think that barring any tax treaty between another country and the US, the solution that makes the most sense is for each country to treat income according to their own laws, not following US laws.

I second what fuzzy said. That first option "I am a foreign national/nonresident alien and do not have a Social Security number or individual taxpayer identification number. I do not plan to file an income tax return in the U.S." is not really for students. I think it's for cases where you are not residing in the US and you get paid by a US entity for some small service or get reimbursed for a trip etc.

There are a few ways: 1. The simplest way is to get a money order from your US bank in the currency of your home country. This will basically look like a cheque issued to your name. You can carry this easily as it's just one piece of paper with all of your US money on it. The fees for this is also usually small. The downside is that the money order should be treated like cash---if you lose it, you could potentially lose the money. (In theory, if you keep a record of the money order serial number and you lose the money order, you may be able to cancel it [like a lost cheque] and recover your funds but it's not guaranteed). 2. If there is a bank that exists in your home country and the US then maybe they will let you transfer money between accounts. I find that there are good international banks (e.g. HSBC), however, most of these require deposits of like $100,000 before these services are effective (so, not for people like us!) 3. Using your ATM card may be an okay way to transfer the money as well, depending on what the fees are. You can just ask your bank. Usually, using a ATM card internationally has fees in the $5-$20 range (you generally pay a fee to both your bank and the bank that owns the ATM) and the exchange rate is usually the market rate plus 2.5% or so. A $5-$20 ATM fee is not great normally and I wouldn't generally use an ATM outside of my bank's country. However, if you are withdrawing all of your money and it's a one-time fee $5-$20 is not that much compared to the exchange fee. 4. You can write yourself a cheque/check (in US dollars) and cash it in your home country. This is like Option #1 however, it will be your home country bank that charges you an exchange fee (and you have to make sure your home country bank is willing to cash a US dollar check/cheque. Also, this will result in more delays before you get your money but if you are home, then this might not be as big of a deal. It carries the same risk of loss as #1 though. Also, this means that you will have to keep your US bank account open until you cash this check. 5. There may be electronic bank transfer options too but I don't know what the fees are for this. Ask your bank.

1. You don't need a SSN to open a bank account. I opened my bank account in the US well before getting my SSN. You just need a US address and proof of that address (e.g. your signed lease). 2. There is no legal limit on the amount of cash you can take into the US. However, if you are bringing more than $10,000 total in monetary instruments (i.e. includes cash, money orders etc.) then you must declare this to US customs/border control when you enter the US. They won't stop you from entering with that much money, they just want to know about it. So, it might be simpler if you bring less than this amount. 3. US banks are very inefficient. There are huge delays when you try to cash a cheque from another country in the US. It could take up to 4 weeks and they will charge you a bad exchange rate. What I did (from Canada) was open a US dollar bank account in my Canadian bank and then moved my Canadian money into that US dollar bank account. When I was ready to move, I withdrew money from the US dollar bank account as a money order (each money order is limited to $2500 but you can take as many money orders as you need). These money orders are drawn from a US bank (the address on the money order is a US location that my Canadian bank has access to) and my Canadian bank did not charge any fees for this service. When I got to the US, I deposited these money orders and they were treated as if I had a cheque from any other US bank so for a new customer like me, the delay in getting access to most of the funds was 3-4 days (they made a small portion of it available right away). If you are from a country without ability to create US dollar bank accounts, you could still see if they will issue US money orders for you---the thing you're looking for is that the funds are drawn from a US bank.

I used to use Citibank and told everyone how great it was. But after a few recent changes, I no longer like banking with them: - They keep reducing hours, now they are only open 10am to 5pm, Mon-Fri, with one single location in my city open 10am-2pm on Saturday. - They got rid of the student account (current student account holders keep the benefits but they will disappear soon) I've switched to Chase now and moved almost all of my money and deposits etc. to Chase. I like it. They always have some kind of bonus where you get a bunch of money for opening a new account, so that's nice. They also have a student account, and more importantly, are open until 6pm on weekdays and 4pm on Saturdays. It seems like almost all banks (at least in my area) have the standard banking package of $12/month fees unless you either keep a $1500 minimum balance or have at least one direct deposit of $500 or more per month. For a grad student, if your school allows direct deposit for pay (most do), then I'd say this is a pretty good plan for students. The next level plan waives more fees but you need a minimum balance of $15,000 which may not be as feasible. As for ATM fees, I try to avoid them by sticking with big banks and using my bank's ATM when I am traveling. I also pay for almost everything with a credit card so I rarely need cash. The credit card I use has no foreign transaction fees (I just pay the exchange rate) so that is nice. If I am traveling for work though, I can get reimbursed for these fees anyways. Once in awhile, I might end up having to pay $5 in ATM fees because I am stuck in an area where my bank's ATM is too inconvenient or I need cash right away. I think it's okay to pay these fees once in awhile for the other benefits of using a big bank (instead of a no-fees but also almost no-service banking). If I am traveling for work, my per diem covers incidentals like ATM fees anyways.

Maybe you can contact the NSERC staff and find out how you can indicate that your US grades does meet the minimum eligibility criteria. I would do this now, over the summer, instead of close to the Fall application deadline.

The US grade system is strange to me, as a Canadian. Some of my courses have grades where 90-100 is the A-, A and A+ range, 80-89 is the B-, B, B+ range etc. However, others grade on some weird arbitrary system where they look at the distribution at the end of the semester and then use natural breaks in the distribution to award grades to various clumps of students. Here is what I think: You may not have to worry at all. Sometimes transcripts come with explanation of how grades are awarded. Also, you won't be the only person ever to be applying from US programs---the evaluators will likely know what your grades mean (they might even have US degrees themselves). I also think you will meet the "minimum" requirement because combining your undergrad and grad GPA should likely be over 80% (A- in most Canadian schools) so you don't have to worry about automatic rejection based on grades. If you are really worried, you should get your letter of reference writer from this school to explain your academic performance. I am assuming you are going to ask your thesis advisor to write a LOR for you---ask this person to write about your academic performance. Finally, remember that for the doctoral grants, the academic performance is only worth 30% of your evaluation (20% for community service, 50% for research and research potential).

1. What field are you in? I don't think UBC is an exception so if your field generally funds PhD students, then I think UBC would too. You can check your department's website for specific details. For example, here is the Physics department's version of the financial page: http://www.phas.ubc.ca/graduate-program-financial-support (Note that in Canada, you are paid a stipend from which you must pay your tuition, generally). 2. Again, depends on the field, but in my experience, while I think it's ideal to have contacted a potential PhD supervisor before applying, it's not impossible to be accepted without any individual contact between you and your potential advisor. Generally, in my field, when you get an offer letter, you may be accepted to specifically work with someone, but some programs don't do this. 3. I think it's reasonable to ask for more details on the offer before making any decisions! I'm assuming that the offer letter does not give any details about funding? This is abnormal to me, at most Canadian schools, including UBC, your offer letter should list the amount of funding and/or some funding commitment (i.e. 2 units of TAships for 4 years, etc.) because most TAs and RAs are unionized and this offer letter becomes your best way to ensure the school funds you at the level they promised (i.e. if they promise X years of TAships, they must uphold their end of the bargain unless you are dismissed because of neglect of duties). So, I think your best next step is to contact whoever gave you the good news and ask about supervisors and funding!

Just to make sure I understand, you are saying you got admitted in the first week of March, then you officially accepted their offer, and you haven't heard anything since then. Did you get a confirmation that they received your decision? Most grad directors would email back with a response like "Glad to hear you are accepting the offer, look forward to meeting you in the Fall" etc. once you tell them your decision. If you haven't heard anything official at all since you sent in your acceptance decision, you could contact the Graduate School itself (not your department) and ask for a confirmation if that makes you feel better. But, if you already know they received your confirmation to attend then it's too early now to have heard anything. If you are an international student though, then you should probably contact the school's international office to get started on the visa paperwork. But if you are not international, then there's probably no communication needed between you and the school at this point. Over the summer, you'll probably start to receive some information like: your student ID number / registering for the online system, getting proof of graduation and transcripts to the school, maybe some enrollment type paperwork. But this could happen pretty late in the summer depending on the school. Enjoy your break If you do want to get a head start on things, you could consider contacting your potential advisor (if you have one) and ask if there is anything you could start thinking about (e.g. some background reading). Or, if you are really antsy to get started, you can even inquire about starting as a summer researcher (paid) ahead of time. In my program, students often start to arrive in June as paid RAs. You don't have to feel obligated to do any of this though! I'd personally would just enjoy the summer, get ready for any moving, save up some money, take some trips, and visit with friends and family. Before moving, we had a mini checklist of all the things in the area we always wanted to do but never made time for and we got to work checking them off!

I agree with what you're saying, but at the same time, even if the program gives you a large workload, you shouldn't have to work more than the contracted/assigned number of hours per week. I really enjoy teaching and I put a lot of time and effort into being a good TA. But I don't work for free and I don't work more than the number of hours I'm supposed to work total. So, if I have a 20 hour/week TAship and the semester is 10 weeks long, I budget 200 hours for the entire semester for TAing. Some TA positions require me to front-load my work (e.g a lab where I have to first get familiar with every experiment / piece of equipment), I might spend 25 hours per week for the first few weeks and then 15 hours a week later on. Or, other classes that have a final project or a lot of midterm grading, I budget my time accordingly. I work with the professor I'm TAing for to budget my time---we meet at the beginning of the semester and discuss what needs to be done and how I will use the time. Part of this conversation is a discussion on how they want me to grade the homework. We talk about the time budget and basically I would then be able to know "Oh, that means I can spend 15 minutes grading each problem set" and then we discuss whether this is enough time. Based on my experience, I can give estimates like "15 minutes per person means I can grade X questions in Y style and provide Z level of comments". If we decide it's not enough or too much then we adjust the course. Some strategies we've used in the past are: reducing the number of problems in each set, reducing the amount of homework, or just reducing the amount of feedback I give. Basically, in my opinion, being a good instructor is not about spending as much of your time as you can spare doing the job. But instead, understanding the resources available and limitations that you're subject to, and then making decisions to maximize the benefit to your students given these constraints. (Actually, I think this is true of any job, especially ones in academia, including research and other aspects of our work).

Generally, I wouldn't do this. To me, this just raises questions---why didn't you pursue it? Also, being nominated doesn't necessarily mean very much because it's not easy for the person reading your CV to know whether it's an award that anyone can nominate anyone and nomination doesn't mean much, or if it's the type of award where nomination means something significant. But if you expect your audience to know the significance of the nomination and that the nomination is an achievement in itself, then include it. Otherwise, you may be able to include it in your SOP that your work on X resulted in this achievement.

This sounds like a good reason to change advisors and honestly, I think the most important thing in making an advisor change is a supportive rest-of-department. So, do you have people that you know would be interested in being your new advisor? From your post, it sounds like the answer is yes, but while it's one thing for them to encourage you to expand your project, it's another big commitment for them to actually take you as their student. So, first, find a faculty member who you would want to switch to. Then, let your advisor know that you want to switch---talk to them in person if they are avoiding your emails. If they further delay or do not meet with you, then get someone from the department-level (e.g. the chair? The director of grad studies?) involved in mediating this and making the change happen. The important thing is to get the other faculty members on your side. There are often lots of politics / unwritten rules / norms in a department that we might not fully know as a grad student, so ideally, if you can find someone on the faculty side to help you navigate the switch, it would be best. It's hard for outsiders to give more specific advice because every department operates differently. In my department, this would be no problem at all as long as you find another advisor willing to take you. In my school (and department), graduate students don't "belong" to any particular faculty---your advisor can't "fire" you and kick you out. The view is that our success is also partly the responsibility of the school/department, so in some places on my campus, if an advisor wanted to stop working with the student, they would have to justify this to the department because if the advisor cuts funding, then the department is on the hook for paying the full stipend of the student. If it's justifiable (i.e. the student really is just not performing up to standard) then it's ultimately the department's decision to fail the student and remove them from the program, not the advisor. This description was to give context to how departments I'm used to operates and you can decide if your department works in a similar way. In this point of view, if you have another faculty member willing to take you and you want to switch, then your old advisor will have little choice in the matter and they would either agree to the switch or be forced to by the department (ideally not by you because that would cause more drama). Finally, while sabbaticals are common, I think what your advisor did on sabbatical is terrible mentoring and a sign of poor advisorship. And even before they went on sabbatical, they should not be asking you to do some of the things they asked you. Ordering food for events related to your research group (e.g. if ordering food duties were rotated between lab group members) is not out of the ordinary but booking their colleagues flights?? Caring for their pets?? This is not part of the graduate student job description. (Although booking your own flights or if you and your advisor are traveling to a research location then asking you to book both your flight and their flight is okay). At most places, there are full time staff hired to do most of these things, and they are generally paid better than grad students.

Hopefully they will be understanding, as it's only 2 days late right now. I would also give them a phone call today in addition to the email though. They might not see the email until awhile later!!

Hi Virtua! 1. I found universities with funded graduate positions by looking at the university webpages. Usually, the department webpage will have some information about funding. If it's not on the department webpage, you might be able to find it from the Graduate Office webpage. If there is no information available at all, then I would contact the appropriate person from the department contact list. You should always check but generally Masters programs are not funded in the US and PhD programs are funded. But this is just a generalization. 2. This is a good question---sometimes the department commits to funding students but you can only work with professors that have funding because the professor needs to provide a part of this funding. The best way to find out is to email the professor and ask them if they have funding for a student in Fall 2017 (or whatever year you will be applying). In this email, you should be very brief, but basically indicate that you are interested in applying to their school and working with them on topic X, and you would like to know if they have spots for students. 3. Yes, it takes a lot of time to research schools and email professors. But you should not be emailing every professor. The goal is to identify a few professors with matching research interests and apply to those professors specifically. When I applied, I also applied to 8 universities and I probably spent over $1000 in total for applications---my transcripts (from 3 schools) cost money, the GREs (both subject and general) cost money, the GRE score reports cost money and the application fee itself was about $100 per school! This is a lot of money so I put a lot of hours in researching and emailing professors ahead of time to ensure that this is money well spent. In the end, I would estimate that I spent a total of 150-200 hours in the months** leading up to applications thinking about which schools to apply to, including things like carefully researching schools to make a shortlist of 15-20 schools, then consulting with various professors I knew to narrow that down to 8, then reading up on each professor to make sure our research interests overlapped and then finally emailing them to make sure that if I am spending $100+ to apply there, if I get accepted, there would be something interesting for me to work on. (** I was in a MSc program while applying to PhD schools, so I basically put aside the equivalent of one work day (8-10 hours) per week starting in July to think about where to apply. In the fall, there was a short period where I basically got very little work done on my MSc projects because I was basically full-time working on applications. My MSc advisor was okay with this and even encouraged me because my advisor is a good person and great mentor who wanted me to get the best opportunity possible after my MSc with them.) In addition to not wasting money to get an offer you're not interested in, spending the time to do the research to make sure you have a great fit will make your application a lot stronger and greatly improve your chances of getting a good offer!

Graduate Assistant positions are only for graduate students, as the job title implies. But you can be hired as a research assistant without being admitted to the graduate program. In this case, you won't be a student there, and you will be paid as a staff member instead. In some fields, some people work as an RA after undergrad in order to gain more research experience and then apply to the graduate program, often for the same group/lab. However, depending on the school, it might cost the professor more money to hire you as a full time RA than to pay for a student, so these positions may be difficult to get. But maybe even a part-time RA will meet your needs. Keep in mind that you'll need to have a valid visa status too. You won't be able to use your student status if you're not a student!

To add to what @rising_star said, another way you can volunteer with local shelters is cat fostering (instead of just traveling to the shelter and interacting with the cats). There are (at least?) two types of fostering. The kind we did was to take sick cats for a week or two (cats often get sick ("kennel cough" / feline upper respiratory issues) because of the close quarters. Another common occurrence is when the humane society picked up new strays from the streets---they usually need some extra care and need to get healthy before they can stay with the other cats so after initial check-in at the shelter, they go to foster care first. So, we took cats for a week or two, gave them medicine and a quiet home until they got better. Then they went back to the shelter where hopefully they would be adopted soon. When there is a cat that could use some time away from the shelter, they would contact a foster volunteer and set it up. They'll tell you how long they need the cat to stay with you, what care you would need to do (e.g. eyedrops, pill in their food, clean their noses/eyes) and then if it works out, you can come pick up the cat. When you bring a cat back, you can pick up another one too if there is another cat in need of foster care, or you can take a break, or if you will be traveling etc. The shelter also supplies 100% of the food, litter, equipment, toys, etc. You don't have to spend any money at all (except traveling to and from the shelter). We purchased a few extra toys so that they would have more stimulation. There are advantages/disadvantages to this: primarily that you can feel like you are doing some good and get to interact with cats at no cost, but the downside is that these cats do require a little bit more care. But, it's perfectly doable with a full time job (both of us were working full time when we were doing this)---most of the care is sneaking a pill into their wet food once a day, or eyedrops in the morning before work and in the evening. But you can work it out with the shelter and they'll match needs to your availability. You can't get attached to the cats though, since they are not there very long---however, they could be: one of our foster cats was a pregnant cat (they didn't know how far along she was) so we had the mother for 2 months before the kittens were born and then we had both the mother and kittens for 12 weeks until they were ready to be adopted. We were able to take on a long commitment like that since we had no travel plans that spring except for a 3 day trip and we were easily able to find a friend wiling to check in on them every day for a weekend! The other type of fostering is where you just take a cat into your home until it gets adopted right from your care. This is a lot more work, since you often either have to 1) take the cat to adoption events and/or 2) set up appointments for prospective adopters to visit the cat.

I would probably pick #3 right now. I'm not worried about the 5 year turnover rate because in today's world, it's not that rare to move on to different jobs after a few years. This is assuming that I get to choose which city #3 is in. Also, I'm assuming that in all three cases, the job is something that is not a "dead end" in the sense that if I leave any of these positions, I would still be employable at the same or a higher level. I'm thinking about jobs now too since I will be on the job market this fall. Out of your list, the things I value, in order, are (for the next 5 years): 1. Location: I want to live in a big city and one that is near a hub airport. I want to live in a place where I feel safe (for a big city), where I can find good food from my culture, where there are fun things to do. There is one city that I would really want to live in more than others and would potentially most of the rest of the items for the right location. 2. Salary: To me, the point of a job is to pay for and support a life that I want. So, the salary needs to be enough to support this. This is related to the first point of course, as some cities are more expensive than others! 3. Hours/Schedule: I don't want to work a job where I work 60 hours per week. If it's not in academia, I want something that is 40 hours per week, with regular hours. If it's in academia, then since the topic interests me more, I'd be willing to work more hours since the work would be more enjoyable. But ultimately, as I said above, the point of working is to support the life I want to have outside of work, so there's no point making a lot of money but not having time to spend it. 4. Work Environment: I'd like to not be miserable at work---it would be nice This is related to the next point too. 5. Challenging projects: I'm interpreting this as "job satisfaction". It would be nice, but not necessary, to be working on something I'm passionate about. It would be preferable to be working on something that utilizes my skills and experience. But I would sacrifice this for the other points above, if necessary. 6. Job security: For this part of my life, I'm not looking for long term job security. Even though this is the bottom of the list, it's still an important factor for me, and I'd say that I would probably not take a job that I don't think I can keep for at least 2 years. But at this stage in my life, 2 years is long enough for me. 5 years is practically permanent. I feel that whatever job I take right after graduation isn't going to be a permanent thing for me, but instead, a stepping stone to the next path on a career. Again, all 6 factors here are important to me, I'm just ranking them because there is an order of priority. The lower ranked ones are ranked that way because I have lower "standards" in these factors! And, I expect these will change with time. I imagine that job security would be more important to me in the future, for example. This is just for my next job, not a choice for the rest of my life!

The GRE testing year runs from July 1 to June 30. The Subject Tests are offered in September, October, and April of each year, although not all locations offers tests at all three times per year. So you are fine because in July 2016, the test registration for Sept 2016 and Oct 2016 will open, and you will be able to register and write these exams before your Fall 2017 applications are due!