TakeruK

To add to this, at my school, I need both the Registrar and the Bursar to fill out my TL11A. I take the form to the Registrar first and they fill out the # of months in the program after confirming enrollment etc. Then, they take it to the Bursar (across the hallway) and the Bursar fills out the tuition and fee info. Then, I get an email from the Bursar to pick it up. Also, I did not know about the TL11A in my first year, so I also had to file an adjustment once. It was "easy" (much easier than doing so with the US tax return). If you have the CRA "MyAccount" set up, you just enter the new numbers online and they will ask you to mail in supporting docs if they want them. My tax software (UFile) allowed me to fill in Box 105 of the T4A. It was a little tricky---on the T4A screen, you have to go through a drop down menu to find the Box 105 option. And the T4A is labeled as "Pensions, annuities and other income" so it's not clear that "other income" includes scholarships too. In the tax return that the software generates, it shows I have the NSERC money from a T4A. However, on the forms that I actually send to the CRA, there's nothing about this income because as you said, it's non-taxable. Maybe Studio Tax just takes a shortcut and doesn't even allow you to enter non-taxable income. I like the UFile way better because I have a record of it, even if it's not taxable. However, it is correct that you don't have to report it in your taxable income amounts, as far as I know. Also, NSERC will send a copy of your T4A to the CRA anyways, so they will know about it and if it's a problem, they will let you know.

I think there are more than one way to do grad school. The "treat it like a job" group probably works at 90% effort for the full 8 hours a day (90% because realistically, you'll spend some time taking breaks, getting up and walking around, chatting with colleagues and taking advantage of the collegial nature of our field. And there is another group of students that take advantage of grad school's flexibility and they might spend 12 hours a day around their office but maybe working at 60% effort, spending more time socializing, taking breaks for Facebook etc. And there's everything in between as well. Overall, both ways are good and it's just up to each person to do what they want to do. Your style will be accepted, most likely We are also international (from Canada, so not really in some ways, but very much so in others!). It took quite a while for my spouse to get work permission through visa status. My spouse didn't go for H1-B though (they joined me as a dependent on my visa). I had to find a school that would grant me a J-1 student visa instead of F-1 because my spouse is allowed to apply for a work permit as a J-2 (but they would not be allowed to do so as a F-2). It depends on what you and your partner wants to do---you know your situation the best of course, but if you are able to get a J-1 visa, then perhaps your partner can join you and get a work permit through J-2. There are extra complications with being on J status, especially with future implications for visas after you graduate, but it's worth considering if you haven't already. I'll be happy to direct you to some information already posted on GradCafe and answer specific questions too!

Although I didn't have a gap from school like you (5 year BSc, 2 year MSc, then moved to PhD), I have some similarities with you. During my undergrad, I took 16 months off from courses to work full time (on research in academia though). The Masters is typical in Canada (2 year Masters then 3 year PhD) but I am now in the US for my PhD so I started over again. This means I started with people around 3 years younger than me. Also, during my Masters, I got married and we had our own place with our own stuff that we moved with us. So, we generally had a different set of issues to deal with when relocating (moving, finding our own apartment off campus, finding work for my spouse, etc.) that has some similarities with you! One thing I learned to do during my full time research work and my Masters was to treat graduate school more like a job than school. I wanted to be able to just go home at the end of the day and not have to do any more work. I am able to make this work mostly in the PhD, except for crunch times. I found that it really helps when you do your homework at school, so that when you go home, there's no more work. Separating work and home/life was really helpful for me. I was not able to only work 9-5 though, since my program has almost all courses in the first year and in order to do both research and courses, it was about 50-60 hours per week, so my normal schedule would either be long days 5 days a week or working shorter days and working half a day or a full day on a weekend, depending on what schedule was more convenient in any given week. Basically, I consider coursework as part of my "job" (i.e. I just treat it like required training if you had a non-academic job). I schedule 9 hours per week per course and I do as much as I can in those 9 hours. Sometimes it means I don't get everything done but it's okay. In my program, 9 hours per week per course generally will get you an A or A-, and it would take another 9+ hours to get an A+ and there's just no point. With this scheduling, my weekly time breakdown in my first year was about 30 hours per week for courses, 20 hours per week for my RA and 0-10 hours that were flexible (maybe some weeks I would choose to spend more time on coursework or research etc.)

I think the answer will also depend on where you are in your life/career right now. If you are still an undergraduate and you didn't take time off to do a bunch of research, my opinion is that you will probably have a tough time finding a program that will value research over your GPA. This is because most of the schools that value research above all else are very research intensive schools, which tend to be the high ranking schools that are going to get a ton of applicants with both high GPAs and decent research experience. That is, I think there are two main things that are good for removing focus on your stats (especially GPA). Research experience is definitely one and the other is time. Your undergrad stats become much less important with time as you gain more relevant skills and experiences. So, if you are finishing up undergraduate this year, I think some options for you would be Masters programs (as @GradSchoolTruther also suggested) or look for more full time research positions in labs in the field you want to work in.

I think the least labour intensive way to go about this is to save everything, and then when you are back in Canada within 10 years, hire a tax attorney to do all of the work of filing adjustments. It will probably cost about a few hundred dollars, but you should be able to get this (and maybe more) back. You can't make your school fill out a TL11A for you, and the CRA has no jurisdiction in the US. I'm sorry to hear that your Bursar office refused to do so My school has become very familiar with the TL11A (about 5% of the grad student population are Canadian and Canadians are the 2nd biggest international group here). I think if you would prefer to take action now instead of later, you can go against their recommendation and claim the tuition amounts anyways. Without a TL11A, your file will be reviewed and then a CRA agent will contact you and ask for the TL11A. At that point, you can discuss your specific case with them. Maybe the agent will be unhappy with you because you did it this way, but it's a potential way to proceed. But if this is going to be happening every year, then you're likely better off waiting to file all the adjustments at once. Finally, despite this hassle, you should be okay for now, right? By this, I mean that you shouldn't be double-taxed on your current stipend and putting you in a bad financial situation. You'd claim your US income as taxable income in Canada but the 9000 USD = approx. 11300 CAD is just about the 2015 "basic personal amount". And even if there is a few dollars above, you'll be taxed in Canada at 15% for the few dollars only. But your taxes paid to US IRS is also credited towards your Canadian taxes, so there should be no additional cost to you in terms of Canadian taxes right? The hassle is just that you have to deal with adjustments later to get your other credits. Tri-Council awards paid overseas are generally paid in the currency of the country you're in, but that does not change the fact that the income is a Canadian source. You will get a T4A with your award amount (in CAD) in Box 105 of the T4A (Box 105 is for scholarships). The payor on the T4A is listed as "Government of Canada", so it's definitely a Canadian source.

agreed, just pointing out that a F-1 student (although not the case here it turns out) do not have to register for coursework (although technically "thesis research" is a "course")

Just to clarify, if you are an international student (F-1 or J-1), you have to be on full-time status at all times, not just the summer. Full-time status depends on each school, so it's not always true that it's 6 hours. At my school, full time is 36 units where a course is generally 9 "units" (in other schools they would be 3 "credits"). One "unit" here is defined as one hour of work per week, whether it's lectures, homework, readings etc. International students at my school must always register for 36 or more units at all times. We generally meet this requirement by registering for 36 units of research during the summer or in the semesters after we finished all of our coursework. Otherwise, we just register for enough research credits to fill the difference (for example, when I had 27 units of coursework, I registered for 9 units of research). One tip for international students at my school I give is to always register for extra research units if you think you might drop a course (i.e. if you aren't sure you want to take 3 courses this semester, then register for the 27 coursework units (3 courses) and also 18 units of research so that if you end up dropping a course, then you still have 36 units total and you don't have to worry about accidentally dropping below full time status or being forced to take a course you don't want to take because of F-1/J-1 regulations. (my school has 10 week quarters and the add deadline is in week 3 while the drop deadline is around week 8, so if you are dropping anything after Week 3, it's not possible to add additional units without getting special permission)

I would just pro-rate the stipend you would get during the regular year for the summer.

No, there is no official due date in which they need to finalize everything. Some people might get a very last minute offer a week or two before the program starts! This happened to one of my friends and that short notice made it not possible to start in Fall of that year, so they started in the January semester instead. I think you should go ahead and make other plans like applying for other jobs etc. When you get an offer from these other plans (which would likely come with a deadline), you should contact BU and get an update from them. If they still have no information, you should go ahead with your other plans. If you do get a last minute offer, then it's up to you to decide what to do. If the last minute offer comes after you already finalized everything with an RA job (or something similar) and you don't want to back out of your RA position, then maybe BU will allow you a deferral for a year (or a semester). It's normal and standard practice for people to apply to multiple things at the same time, so if you hear from BU within a few weeks, before the other opportunities make their decisions, it's fine to just withdraw your RA applications. And, if you do get a last minute admissions offer after you committed to a job, it's not ideal but also not unusual for someone to change their mind at the last minute because a better opportunity came up. This is why some schools won't officially reject you until the school year starts, because someone might just drop out at the last minute, and why many jobs either never tell you they hired someone else or wait until the new person starts before officially declining your application. So, I would move ahead with other plans for now, and be prepared to change them if the offer from BU comes late (and if the offer is good enough for you). Good luck!!

This is based on my limited understanding only, please don't take it as fact and check with a real expert! Yes, if you complete a W-8BEN form with your university, it will exempt you from being required by the University to automatically withhold your income tax at the nominal rate of 30% for foreign payees (i.e. people like us). Instead, the University will then withhold the proper amount of taxes (more like 14%). Note that the W-8BEN does not exempt you from taxes, just reduces the automatic 30% withholding to something more reasonable. You can think of the W-8BEN as something like the Canadian TD-1 form (http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pbg/tf/td1/README.html) where you tell your employer how much you would like them to withhold. Normally, you will fill out a W-8BEN during registration/orientation at your school (in my case, I filled it out during International Students Check-in, along with other international student administrative paperwork). Just like the TD-1 form, you fill out a W-8BEN for every new position you take or at any time you want to update your information with your employer. There is a Canada-US tax treaty and it basically applies to income under $10,000 only. I don't know all of the legal fine print of the treaty so I can't help you there, but if the treaty specifies that you can have a lower withholding rate, you write that into the W-8BEN and the school will withhold less taxes. However, if you still end up owing the IRS money, then you would have to pay it when you complete your tax return. In addition, the IRS tax code specifies that if you do not have your employer withhold a certain amount of taxes, you must make quarterly estimated tax payments or face a penalty when you do file your return. So, unless you are very sure of what you're doing, I would have the school withhold the typical amount for your income level (typically 10% to 15%). I would not try to get a 0% tax withholding rate, unless you know that your income will be completely covered by the tax treaty, then perhaps it's better for you to have the money now than to wait to file your taxes each year.

I think what @HanBWW is saying is true---the one you accept will be more connected with your name than the other one---people will only ever see the other one when they are reviewing your CV. However, the only time it matters which one(s) you got will be when people are reviewing your application for something, and for that, they will see your CV. And when they have the job of reviewing you for something, they are going to know what both NSF and NDSEG means. I mean yes, when you give a talk, your title slide will say NSF or NDSEG on it, but to be honest, it doesn't really matter. I really don't mean to diminish the honour and work and achievement of these awards, but as you say, there are 200 NDSEG fellows and 2000 NSF fellows (not to mention there are other national fellowships too). I don't think people are really going to remember the name of the fellowship you received. At best, you would want them to remember/recognize that you have some kind of national graduate fellowship, and they will likely remember that. The reason why I say the specific award doesn't matter is because these graduate fellowships are typically awarded based on your performance and achievements at the undergrad and first year graduate student level. i.e. having one of these awards signal that you were successful at this stage of your career. If you have one of these, then it's likely that the next time you have big important things to apply to would be when you are a senior graduate student (since you won't be applying to other fellowships for awhile). When you get to this point, your achievements from undergrad/1st year grad school are no longer as important. People are going to be more interested in what you have achieved as a graduate student, not when you were just starting out. Of course, having a fellowship still counts very positively, but they are going to be far more interested in what your LORs say, what publications you've completed, what your current body of work is like. At this stage, it just matters that you got an award of this calibre, not whether you got it from NSF or NDSEG. Therefore, I would choose the award that has the most benefits to you (directly or indirectly), instead of the "name". Good luck with that! It's worth trying, but as I wrote above about the weirdness of tuition, this might not be possible. In addition, I find that many well-funded private schools purposely set a fixed stipend level for everyone, to avoid competition, so that they won't raise your stipend (however, you might be able to get your advisor to commit $X towards a research fund for you etc.). In my program, the only way you will get paid above the fixed stipend rate is if you win a fellowship that pays all of your tuition and that fellowship also pays you a stipend level higher than the current standard stipend rate. Then, the school won't "take away" money from your stipend and you get to keep the extra.

A lot of this can vary between fields, but as ShogunT kind of hinted at, I find that in the STEM fields, having some part of the project already completed greatly improves your chances of grant success. It's a little counterintuitive and I think it's not great that it works this way, however, it seems to be what actually happens. I see that most groups will have almost 50% of the work completed for a project, apply for a grant to do that project, then finish it up and use the rest of the money to start the 50% of the work towards the next project (that is based on the last project, so it's still okay to use grant funds from the first project) and then write a grant for the second project etc. This only works for broad grants that cover an area of research---you can't do this for grants that specific for one single project only though! As to where to start, I write grant proposals like I write papers. This is just what works for me, not saying it's the only way to do it. 1. First, like rising_star suggested, thinking about the general research Qs is important. Figure out the general overall goals of your work. I would generally write notes and thoughts that will eventually become my introduction, motivation and background theory sections. (Depending on the grant, these might not be specific sections named like this, but the equivalent sections that will convey this information). 2. Then, I would outline the message I want to communicate. I do this by listing all of the figures I want to include. If you are able to actually make the figures (i.e. you already have the data and analysis complete) then that's even better. If not, then outline the figures. Maybe draw a sketch of what you would expect the trends to be so that you can visualize the "story" that your grant is going to tell. Also, make a sketch of the figures that will describe your expected results (or the figure that would answer the research question you outline above, i.e. what you expect to get once you finish the project). Note: not all of these figures will actually go into your grant proposal, I like to think of them as "storyboarding". 3. Next, I fill in the details of the research. Write the text that connects the figures to each other and describe how you are going to get the data, how you are going to analyze it and what conclusions could you draw from it. How strong would these conclusions be? 4. Then, go back to the introduction and now that you have a picture of what you are going to achieve in the near future and at the end of the project, you can write your introductory sections that directly addresses these points. Connect your work to the current knowledge in the field (this is where your prior lit review will be important!). Show how your work will advance your field's knowledge. 5. Iterate steps 3 and 4 until you are complete---generally, as you build up your introduction, you would decide exactly which other works are the most relevant to your research, then you can go back to Step 3 and make sure you can describe why your work can reach stronger conclusions, and as you write Step 3, you might find different angles to approach the problem, which might mean modifying your introduction/lit review/finding more papers to redo Step 4, etc. 6. Once you are happy with the above, you have your first draft! The rest of it is polishing up this draft, getting feedback from advisors and other students etc. etc. This is a process that takes a lot of work too, but here I'm just addressing the question of "how to begin?" and I think these first few steps are the hardest!

Talk to your school's international program office. You shouldn't be making these decisions to withdraw etc. without informing them. You should not just be leaving the country---they need to close your SEVIS record etc. etc. (or there will be lots of problems for you in the future if you want to go back to the US, even on a visit). The international student office is there to help you so you should seek their help and follow their advice. As fuzzy said, the regulations are that if you do not complete your degree program, you must leave the US immediately. Now, no one is going to come and physically make you leave the country, but if you don't follow the rules then there will be future consequences. I would also think that it makes more sense to finish the semester/term and officially withdraw at the end of the term. You could/should finish your degree if it's possible to complete it within this semester. Even if you wouldn't get a degree by the end of the semester, you might not want to have failing grades. Either way, consult with your international student office. If you decide leaving before the end of the semester is the best choice for you, it is possible to get a plane ticket for the next day, but it would not be cheap or practical! Typically, people plan this in advance, so once you talk to your international student office, figure out the official process to withdraw and finalize all of your plans, then book a plane ticket and officially withdraw the day before your flight.

I think a lot of the specifics will depend on your school's code of conduct and other policies. Although I have never had to do it myself, in general, I think a TA should be able to dismiss a student from their class if they are calling the TA a profanity (especially if there is unlawful harassment along with it) or if they are disrupting the learning environment of other students. Also, as an a TA, I think you should have the right to not deal with abusive students in your work environment (whether you are protected by labor laws will depend on whether you are treated as an employee, though). Finally, if you are responsible for students in a lab setting, I think violation of lab safety (the loud music example) is reasonable grounds to remove a student from a lab. For the serious infractions like this, I would personally lean towards asking the student to leave and deal with whether or not I was allowed to do that / should have done that later. I would generally prefer to take immediate action that eliminates the safety risk (if one exists) and remove disruptions to other students' learning. Then, as necessary, I would go to the appropriate offices on campus after the fact to figure out what to do next, if anything needs to be done, so that the incident doesn't happen again. But the protocol for each school will vary with each school's policies! You generally learn this during orientation or some kind of TA training. For the example of the student derailing the class discussion, or other smaller disruptions, I don't think dismissing the student is the right response. Usually, during TA training, you are taught some strategies to keep the class on task and redirecting the discussion to the relevant topic. I find that usually, a reminder that X is not the topic for discussion today and then disengaging from the conversation works well for stopping discussion on an irrelevant topic. There is a pitfall to this approach though, because depending on the course material, while the instructor might expect students to approach the topic in an unbiased manner, the truth is that we are all humans and it's not easy (or even better, necessarily) to approach everything from a disinterested view. I think it's important to create a classroom climate that encourages learning and growth. So, if a contentious topic like climate change comes up during a class and if it's somewhat relevant to the topic (even if a little tangential) then maybe a good thing to do would be to schedule a discussion on the topic for the class in the future. I'd explain that I have already prepared material for today's class but we will try to work in the climate change discussion later in the term. And then follow through on it if you can find a way to make it work with the course learning goals (usually possible and probably better to engage with an example/topic that your students care about instead of an arbitrary one that you picked). If you expect the discussion will be heated, be sure to set "ground rules" for the discussion at the start.

Like @ClassApp said, if your field (or sub-field) is small, then burning bridges and having a bad reputation can have a serious consequence. Even if your field is big, there are likely some small pockets where your reputation will matter. You don't have to say your field---you can judge for yourself if your field is big or small! My (broad) field probably has a few thousand people in the United States, my (sub) field has around 1000, and my specific topic of research has a few hundred (if you include grad students). I would consider this a small field! Even after being a grad student for a few years, you quickly learn the name of almost every faculty in the US working on the topic (and you start to know many of the grad students too). Just to add to what was said, here are some examples of where burning bridges with faculty at University X can still hurt you later, even if you never apply to University X. But, before I go further, I want to clarify that when many of us talk about burning bridges, we're talking about either very serious offenses and/or a repeated pattern of behaviour. We rarely mean that one single bad action can ruin your career forever, and to be honest, as new grad students, it is pretty hard for us to do something noticeably bad enough that people will remember. However, as new grad students, we have very little reputation and most of our interactions with our scientific community will be the first time we interacted with that person and you only get one chance to make a good first impression. So, we commonly say you'd burn bridges if you go back on your word for something like an admissions offer. In all honesty, if that was the only thing you ever did, it's unlikely you'll face real and serious consequences in the long run. This is why I also say that if you must do this for some reason, then do it. But, you would make a bad first impression and chances are, you'll hopefully redeem yourself later on. But if you end up doing more unprofessional things, then it will all add up to hurt you. Now, for some examples of how damaging your relationship with people at University X can hurt you even if you never directly work with University X. (Remember, most of these examples are for much more serious actions than typically true when we say "burning bridges" on this forum): 1. Faculty from University X will likely be on the Science Organizing Committee (SOC) of future conferences you want to submit to. These are the people that decide who gets talks vs. who gets posters. 2. Faculty from University X will be panel members reviewing your future grants, your future fellowship applications etc. 3. Some places have evaluations of you where they call up random people in your field and ask them to evaluate you (like a LOR except you don't get to choose your recommenders). This is unlikely to happen to a grad student, but it's a common evaluation method when making hiring decisions or tenure decisions. 4. Faculty from University X may be reviewers on your future papers. 5. Faculty from University X may be friends/colleagues/collaborators with people at Universities A, B, C and you might be applying to A, B, C in the future and these people might talk to each other.

I am sorry to hear that you are in this position. Unfortunately, if you are not granted release from your contract or lease, and then you will be legally responsible for the rental fees until the end of the contract, whether or not you actually live in the apartment. I disagree with you that this is unfair. After all, if you were not renting from the school, you might have an even longer lease contract. In many places, leases are 1 year contracts, so if you are kicked out of your program in the middle of the year, you would have to find some way to sublet your apartment or hope the landlord releases you from your contract. However, remember that your apartment lease is a contract and once you sign a contract, you legally agree to abide by all of the statements in the contract, even if you don't like them. I do agree with you that this sucks a lot though, however, I give some suggestions below! If you don't pay for 1 month, I don't know what will happen. Usually, if you do not pay rent and the rent is owed to the University, then they will lock all of your university accounts. I am not sure what you plan to do after you leave this program. But one thing they usually do is prevent you from ordering official transcripts until all debts are paid. So, if you plan to apply to different programs, you will have to pay this rent in order to send transcripts. If you are going to receive a Masters degree, they might also hold onto your diploma until your debt is paid. In addition, like any other landlord, if you don't pay your rent, they can eventually evict you (although in this case, it sounds like you will be leaving so this might not matter) and also sue you and take you to court for the money that you owe. If this happens, it will impact your rental history and it could affect your credit report and any future ability to get credit. I don't know what your future plans are, so I do not think it is a good idea to try to avoid paying rent to the end of your contract. Here are some suggestions on what you could do instead: 1. As namarie said, maybe you can find someone you can sublet the apartment to, as long as this is allowed in your lease and the landlord agrees to it. This is usually more easily done for apartments that aren't owned by University Housing though. However, maybe Housing has a waiting list of people hoping to move in. So, talking to the Housing Manager is a good first step. 2. Your advisor is going to stop paying you after May 13, but when are you officially "kicked out" of the program? If it's not the same date, then no, even though you are not being paid, this does not mean that you are no longer a student. So, one way to potentially end your housing contract is to cease being a student (the contract might have a clause to end your lease when you are no longer a student because University Housing generally wants their housing to be for students only). If showing the letter from your ex-advisor is not enough, can you talk to the registrar/grad school to officially leave the University on May 13? This may allow you to end all contracts with the school. Note: I think I remember from your previous posts that you are an international student. If so, and if you are on F-1 or J-1 status, then remember that if you leave your educational program before it is completed, then you must immediately leave the United States. You do not get the 30 days "grace period" between program ending and leaving the US because you did not complete your program. So, if you choose option 2 above, then you should have everything else prepared to leave too (make sure you do the exit paperwork as necessary with your international student office, close bank accounts etc. etc.). If you need more time, then maybe you can figure out when the best date for you to officially leave/separate from the University. 3. Finally, maybe you can seek assistance from other sources on campus (Graduate Office etc.) to ask Housing for a special exception so that you don't have to pay rent after you leave. There are lots of cases on school campuses where if you ask for help, you will get it. Official policies might not take into account scenarios like yours. Maybe if you show that you would have a serious financial hardship having to pay rent while you are not being paid and that you want/need to go home (officially removing yourself from the University, as in Option 2 above, would require you to leave the country, so maybe that can help your case here). Note #2: This is a tough situation and these are just ideas for your consideration. You might want to talk to other people in the University before taking any action to make sure there are no other unintended consequences. I am not guaranteeing that any of this advice would work!

Yes to both questions. For the recognition question, it's my opinion that the main benefit is that you showed you won a competitive national fellowship. I don't think winning both the NSF and NDSEG is better than winning just one. But I'd still put both on the CV since you don't know whether each particular reader will think one is better than the other. For the savings vs NSF flexibility, here is how I see it: taking the NDSEG means you will for sure get the extra money benefit (indirectly). However, you only benefit from the NSF's flexibility if you end up needing to use it. As you said, most students are able to take the first 3 years of their fellowship consecutively. The NSF doesn't just let you take any 3 years out of 5---you can only suspend your award for certain reasons (see the guide). At the same time, NDSEG generally requires the award to be 36 consecutive months, but there are ways to get approval to suspend the award, such as summer internships if your field has that (see the fellows FAQ: https://ndseg.asee.org/ndseg_fellows/current_fellow_faq) In my opinion, right now, if you don't foresee any reason that would prevent you from taking the award for 36 consecutive months, then you should take the NDSEG for sure. But if you are planning to do some things that will require you to ask for a leave of absence from school (e.g. starting a family, knowing that a family member will need you for care, working with a collaborator at a different school, participating in an exchange program etc.) then it seems like the NSF is more flexible and will allow for this. The NDSEG may allow it (they say these decisions are on a case-by-case basis) so unless you know for sure you need to suspend your award, I think the NDSEG is the better choice. Finally, two additional points that might interest you: 1. The NDSEG also has a $1000 allowance for health insurance, which might mean more actual money in your pocket. At my school, the student insurance plan costs $2700 per year and as part of our stipend package, the school subsidizes it and we only pay $500 per year. I have a NASA award that has an insurance allowance that covers this $500 for me, so while my stipend is the same as everyone else, those with this fellowship effectively get an extra $500 per year because we don't pay our insurance premium. It's not a huge amount, but $500 is $500. The NSF cost of education allowance can be used for the insurance, but it's at the discretion of the school if they want to allow you to do this or not. On the other hand, since getting a fellowship means you aren't going to be paid as "employees" of the school, this might make you ineligible for the student health plan. This depends on the school. Typically, well funded private schools do not limit health insurance access to students on assistantships only, but it might be useful to check. At my school, every grad student is eligible for the plan, whether or not we work as TAs or RAs. 2. Tuition is a weird and magic number at schools, especially at private schools. My school charges just over $40,000 for tuition "on paper". This is the undergraduate tuition rate and the graduate student tuition rate, on paper, is also the same amount. However, for the vast majority of students, no one actually pays this full amount (not the student, not the advisor, not the department). I don't know exactly how much the advisor/department have to actually pay for student tuition costs here, but based on some conversations with administrators**, I think it's about $20,000***. The reason I mention this is to compare that cost to the NSF's CoE allowance of $12k, that is, even if your tuition's sticker price is over $40k, this is why your program coordinator may not seem to care very much that the NDSEG brings in more tuition money. However, this is all guesswork and entirely out of your control so you shouldn't factor this into your decision! I'm just saying this because it makes sense why the (well funded) department is downplaying the extra tuition money from NDSEG. (** I know it's not the same amount because the Graduate Dean here has told us that the school uses this as a way to incentive "good behaviour" by departments. Technically, tuition is still $40k, charged by the grad school to each department for each student. However, the grad school gives an (undisclosed) "discount" on tuition provided the department meets certain criteria. I don't know all of the criteria but one of them is that this discount is only given if the departments pays their student at least $X per year. I found out this information when I asked the Graduate Office how they enforce some of the published policies, since they don't have a ton of direct control over the departments at my school. I thought it was a pretty effective way to enforce policies!) (*** I estimate it's $20,000 because our school is undergoing a fundraising campaign to offer fellowships to every single incoming graduate student and their budget/fundraising goal puts the cost of this as $1,000,000 endowed per student. Assuming growth of 10% and the typical strategy of spending half of the interest and reinvesting the other half, a $1 million endowment allows for the school to spend $50,000 each year. Our stipends are around $30k, so that's where $20k comes from. These are big assumptions on the percentages, but it's a starting guess.)

Definitely put both on your CV as others mentioned. To me, it sounds like NDSEG is the better choice because it helps out your department more. This will effectively free up more funds for your advisor, which might result in more research money for you. My advisors have been willing to spend more money on things like computers, travel to international conferences etc. because I've brought in outside money! However, it does sound like your advisor and department may not care that it will cover more tuition. If you haven't talked to your advisor about this then you should do so!! (You only say you talked to your program coordinator). Okay I just realised that you might not be a grad student until the Fall! So, if this is true and if you haven't picked an advisor yet, then I would say choosing NDSEG might be an even better choice. With the NDSEG, you would really cost the advisor $0, your tuition and stipend is all covered. This will give you a LOT more options on which advisors to work with because it's less likely that money will be an issue. Since you're going to a private school that sounds well funded, this might not be an issue anyways but having the flexibility is really powerful. I think that in a field where the NDSEG is awarded, people will recognize the prestige of the NDSEG award. So, if you are planning to stay within one of the NDSEG fields, you don't have to worry about NDSEG vs NSF prestige (and again, you'll put both on the CV anyways).

@Jolie717: I think your points are great and I agree with you too! I chose to write that old post arguing for the merits of one point of view, but I do agree with you that it's not so simple. I do think about the things you wrote as well, and I recognize that these ideas are contentious. I also agree that it's pretty tough to have a deep conversation about a topic like this in this medium! Since writing that post, there has been many discussion events at my campus about some of these topics---several hours worth of events! And even after all those discussions, I feel like there is more that can be said. I still think my overall views from the old post mostly stand, but I have changed my mind about some things based on these discussions. One example is bias in decisions and I think it's time to remove the GRE from the decision making process because it's a biased and faulty metric. It also doesn't provide any useful information! So, while I still think the solution to removing bias from the workplace is to train the bias out of people, I want to be clear that I do think there can also be changes in the way information is provided in the application process (e.g. maybe the first stage should be name/gender/race blind etc.) (P.S. I am hoping the Physics GRE and General GRE will disappear from a lot of applications next year in my field. My field's national society has officially endorsed a position urging department heads in the US to remove them: https://aas.org/posts/news/2015/12/presidents-column-rethinking-role-gre)

I'm also a Canadian in the US and I'm not certain I'll stay here so I am not locking my savings up in US investments. My current plan is to put them in savings accounts until I go back to Canada, where I can contribute to RRSPs. These are like Roth IRAs, except you don't need to put employment income in them. Instead, each year, as you work, you get some amount of dollars (a fraction of your employment income) added to your contribution limit and you can carry over contribution amounts from past years. Although working in the US does not add to my contribution limit in Canada, I had worked in Canada before (and not had savings to contribute) so I plan on dumping as much as I can into my RRSP when I return to Canada. RRSPs also provide a tax break so it also makes more sense for Canadians to defer their RRSP contribution to a time where the tax shelter is more beneficial. The idea is that if you aren't making that much income where the tax break would be helpful and you know that you'll make much more money later (i.e. postdocs will pay a lot more than a grad student), then it's better to pay taxes on the investment income on that money now while you're in grad school, since the tax won't be that much and then get your tax shelter later, when you are earning much more. For pterosaur's case: Check with your school's benefits office. Part of our grad student benefits package include sessions with a financial advisor. At my school, grad students are not eligible for any plan in which the school also contributes or matches contributions. However, we can contribute to a 403(b) plan, but the university does zero matching. However, you do need to be receiving W2s in order to contribute (our RA/TA work results in W-2s, but our fellowships are paid by 1099-MISC [for Americans] and 1042-S [for International students). Unfortunately, if your entire income is the fellowship, then I don't think you'd be eligible for these retirement plans. But you don't need these fancy retirement plans in order to save for the future. They do provide a nice tax shelter (I think you don't have to pay taxes on your contribution to a 403(b) plan) but maybe it will also work out for you to just invest it in some other investment plan and then move the savings to a retirement plan later on? (i.e. if you manage to save up a bunch of money now, then when you do earn employment income, you can use that new employment income to get to the maximum contribution allowed by Roth IRAs and other plans and then use your savings to pay for your expenses then).

It's a very good question and typically something recommended whenever there are those "What are some good questions to ask when I'm at a school visit?" posts here.

Just want to second all of this You are allowed to do what makes you happy! For some, this means putting a relationship or a non-career priority first. For others, the mere thought of compromising their best career option for another person makes them ill. Neither way is correct nor incorrect. You can and should place value in what you yourself value, not what society, or family, or friends, etc. tell you. (Easier said than done, of course). But here's another voice affirming that it's okay to want something that isn't career based

This is super tricky. I think you have handled everything else perfectly. If it was an anonymous survey, I'd say go ahead and mention the diversity issue. At my school, I work on various student advocacy projects and having testimony from someone like you saying you didn't choose us because of specific factor X is super valuable. Deans, administrators and other faculty members will listen when we have this kind of data to show. However, it is much riskier answering a direct/personal email like that. You're right that if they are not supportive of your thoughts, it could hurt you. And it might not even benefit anyone else---after all, if they thought your reason was bad, they probably won't ever tell anyone else what you said and instead just make things bad for you. On the other hand, if they are someone that would help champion this cause, then having your testimony could really help. The reason why I think it could hurt you is because while we all think diversity is a good reason to choose/not choose a school, there are many people that don't think so. They will think that you are either 1) insulting them and/or 2) stupid/silly/frivolous for considering non-academic reasons. I know that some faculty members don't get the importance of diversity at all and think that even considering diversity is an attack on academic freedom and/or meritocracy. It's up to you how much risk you want to take. Personally, I wouldn't be that level of honest in a personal email like this, because it has little chance of doing "good" and a great chance of hurting me, unless I really knew the person I was talking to (but still it might be forwarded to others). I still think it is important to let the school know that their lack of diversity is hurting them. As someone at a school like this working to get people to pay attention to diversity, we need outsiders to tell us we suck so that we can use it as evidence for why this lack of diversity is hurting us! But I have a different suggestion. Instead of talking to your department directly about it, write to the campus' Diversity Center or the Graduate Office (talk to the person that is in charge of graduate student advocacy issues). Share your experience during the visit with them, explain the reason behind your decision. If you noticed specific things that happened during the visit that made you feel uncomfortable or that something was "off" with the environment, mention them. This is a great way to help the current and future students there! (Note: sometimes Diversity Center staff are confidential resources which mean that they might not take any particular action unless you request them to. So, whether or not you know this is true, when you share your story, be specific about which parts they can share to others and which part you don't want shared. Maybe some details you want to share with them so that they have context but you don't want it in the "report" because it could identify you).

I don't know anything about the state issues, but for the University side of things, you need to be careful how you work on this. When I started my program, we all had to sign agreements regarding conflict of commitment and intellectual property. The conflict of commitment thing basically says that we cannot be in a "line position" (i.e. CEO, CFO, CTO, etc.) If you are in this position while a grad student, you have to give this role to someone else while in grad school or take a leave of absence. Some students take the leave of absence to bring their company to a point where they can hand off day to day management to another person or maybe during this time they decide they don't want to return to grad school. You can get up to 2 years off this way, so it's also a nice way to try out your startup and see if it's going to be viable. Of course, whether you get your leave and/or you get to return exactly where you left off also depends on your advisor. As for intellectual property, at my school, the only way you can ensure you have full rights to your work is to not touch it at all using any school resources. Don't use your school computer to write any emails, run any code, create any websites. Don't use your school email address for any communication. Don't use school labs, school equipment, don't do work on your own laptop while on the school WiFi etc. Don't use your school's library subscription to download/access articles. Don't use free software provided by the school to do your work. I would be careful to log everything I do for my own company and be able to prove that you didn't use any school resources to do this. Note that all of this is only if you want there to be no connection between you and the school with the company's IP. I think my school actually has some programs that help startups get going. I don't know the conditions of these types of partnerships/agreements, but once you start at your school, you can review the school's policies and decide if it's agreeable to you.

Most schools don't follow the April 15 thing. A small number of schools that generally compete with US schools will do so, but most faculty at Canadian schools don't even know about April 15 thing.