TakeruK

Wow that is a crappy thing to happen. I hope that the fact you found out 1 day after you made your decision was just an unlucky coincidence rather than the POI waiting until you accepted their department's offer before telling you (because, in my opinion, the latter is an unethical act, especially if they have been communicating with you and know about your interest in working with them). Do you have an option of going to the new school with this POI? I am guessing not, or they would have already mentioned it. The question is whether or not this school will still meet your post-degree goals after this POI leaves. (If this is a 2 year program, are you applying to PhD programs next? or something else?). If the school can still give you what you want after 2 years and the potential opportunities at other schools are not worth waiting another year to start, then take the offer. But don't feel like you are obligated to "stay true" to the offer, since the circumstances have now changed.

If possible, if you are holding out for a waitlist offer, ask for an extension with your top-choice accepted school (decline all your other offers) and check in with your waitlisted school(s) to find out what their post-April 15 plans are. Some schools will be able to make new offers as soon as they get declines on April 15, others might take a few days to re-evaluate their pool and make offers on the next business day.

You can/should consult with your Masters advisor(s) about this. But in general, graduate students auditing classes is not a problem at all. I can't see how an "audit" would hurt you. i.e. if you are comparing transcript A, which just has the required MS courses and transcript B, which has the required courses plus 2 additional audit courses, then I cannot see how transcript B would look worse than transcript A. Of course, having a course listed as "audit" would not really count much positively either (i.e. if you want to use this course to demonstrate knowledge of a material, then take it instead of auditing it). Note: At the schools I've been to, there is rarely an option to "audit" a course. It's either take it for letter grades, take it as "pass/fail" or just attend the classes and not formally register (with the instructor's permission).

I would personally interpret a deadline to be "end of business day in local time zone of that university". This is how most other deadlines in academia work (e.g. conference submission, grant proposal, etc.). Many grad schools will write an explicit time (e.g. 11:59:59PM April 15) because of how many questions they have got in the past! But you really should check with your school in question if it's not written somewhere.

For coursework, my field does not use a standard writing style, so students here can use any form of English they want. I never lost points or got corrected for using Canadian English and when I grade my students' work, I don't dock points for this either, as long as they are consistent. For academic work, like Oshawott says, I follow the style of the journal I'm writing for. If I was writing an article for, say, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, that journal uses UK English rules and I follow that. If I write for The Astrophysical Journal, it is published by the American Astronomical Society and thus I write in American English. Note: Unlike a lot of other fields, it seems like Astronomy does not have one standard style (e.g. like MLA, APA, Chicago etc.). Instead, it seems like every journal has their own style, which draws upon existing styles (APA and Chicago mostly, I think) and then add modifications for field specific things (such as dates of telescope observations, names of stars etc.).

As MathCat said, you will have to talk to your PhD department. However, when you do so, don't bring it up as "Can I still enroll without completing my Masters" since that sounds like you are planning to not complete your Masters. Instead, your problem sounds typical and it's not the end of the world if you cannot do your defense in June. You should work with your current program and set a different defense date. It might help to hear that many schools will not require you to have your Masters degree in your hands when you start your PhD, but they will want to see it eventually. In my case, I defended my Masters in mid-August and handed in the final version of my dissertation at the end of August. This means I did not officially get my degree until November. My PhD program started in September and my PhD schools aid I had until December to produce my Masters degree, which was fine. Most schools will understand that graduate programs often end in August instead of June and will give you some time to get the degree officially conferred. But, if possible, I would try to get all of the formal degree requirements (e.g. defense, final submission of dissertation) finished before you leave for your PhD program.

I disagree with this, with an exception below. If you intend to pursue a graduate degree, it is very bad form to commit to a program and then change your mind afterwards. You will burn bridges at NEU by doing this. Forfeiting the $100 deposit doesn't make up for it. Instead, what you should do is contact USC and NYU Tandon now. Find out if they plan on admitting students after April 15. What @Ignis said may be true---all these programs might have already finished making decisions and have not yet rejected people, so then you can safely accept NEU's offer. However, if they tell you that they do plan to make offers after April 15, which is normal because almost every school will give initial candidates until April 15 to decide so it's only after April 15 that they can fill vacancies, then you should talk to NEU and ask for an extension so that you can hear back from the other two schools. Now, only if you know there is a chance you can be admitted after April 15 from the other schools and NEU refuses to give you an extension, then DealBreakerC's advice makes sense. At this point, although backing out of your commitment will still hurt you, there isn't really an alternate choice. I just would not advise accepting an offer with the intention of reneging it until you've tried all these other options first.

Ah yes, you're right, there's no bar between J-1 student and J-1 student statuses! As for the Fulbright, it sounds like we have applied to very different Fulbright programs, so I guess my advice won't apply here either! My program informed me of their final decision in early April, which was before I started any visa application process with my school (in May). Anyways, good luck

If you are not sure, you should ask the school specifically. Like others said, many schools clarify their deadline by giving an exact time, such as "by Noon April 15" or "by 11:59:59PM April 15" or "by the end of business day April 15". To me, if no time is given, I would read the deadline as 5PM on April 15 at the school's local time. Typically, in academia, a deadline is given such that the date written/spoken is the last day in which one can take an action. You might remember the application deadlines to work the same way. Typically, you see grant deadlines, conference deadlines, etc. written where if the deadline is May 1, that means May 1 is the last day in which you can take that action.

I think this is a valid thing to think about. I know that it's no fun being called on in class to answer a question on the spot, and this practice is usually unnecessary in most classes. The way I think about the hardship of presenting to a class for students with anxiety or other issues is to not surprise students with these requirements and expectations. They are told on the very first day what is expected in each class. Often, the course involves a final project at the end with a 15 minute presentation. Or, they will be required to get into groups of 2 or 3 and trade draft papers for peer review. Or, there may be a 5 minute presentation every week. Or, there will be grading strictly based on participation---you must speak at every class in order to get points (common in graduate seminar classes). In fact, I always tell all of the students exactly what the expectations are during the first day/week of class. I believe in making expectations fair and upfront. My point here is that I agree with you that, as instructors, we need to consider that our students have different needs in order to succeed in the classroom. But this does not mean that you have to compromise your teaching goals. In my classes, public speaking, presentations, and participation are a critical component of the core learning goals for both my class and the program's overall curriculum. I try to help students with anxiety as much as possible by informing them of the expectations beforehand and thus they can seek whatever help they might need in order to succeed in the class (Of course, I also let the students know I can be a resource, but I understand that sometimes the students prefer help from someone not involved in teaching them or from someone with expertise in their situation). So, I would be an instructor that would set expectations like "all students must keep a copy of all their work until final grades are awarded" and if I need another copy of an assignment, I would definitely ask, and expect, the student to provide it. But I'm not going to just say "You must provide it by X date or else!", and if the OP was my student, I would certainly try to find out if there was a hardship in getting an extra copy to me and be as reasonable as I can. In general, it's important for instructors to think about different needs and difficulties that our students might face. But we should also not assume our students are not capable of X and then treat them as if they cannot do it. Instead, I believe in empowering my students with the knowledge of what is expected so that they can do what they need to do in order to succeed.

Don't commit until you have a funding offer in hand (unless you are willing to go without funding). If you have a April 15 deadline, I would contact the school directly in person tomorrow (April 14) during the school's business hours. Since you would want to know the information on the same day, don't rely on email---make a phone call.

It's unlikely that they will lie to you about this. I know the reimbursement waiting time sucks because we all have bills to pay! For a sense of timescale, typically for visits in mid Feb to early March, I got my reimbursements around mid-May. It takes extra long when you are not a current student at the school. When my own school reimburses me, it typically takes about 2-3 weeks.

When you did the undergrad research, although you worked with a grad student directly, there was probably a professor in charge of the lab, right? One common thing that happens is to have the graduate student write the letter and the professor signs it or write notes about you to the professor and the professor bases their letter on the grad student's notes. This way, you get the impact of the close working relationship with the graduate student as well as the weight of the professor's name. This is something you would have to ask the professor and grad student if they are okay with. If you have a good relationship with the former grad students, then maybe asking their advice on what to do next is a good idea.

First, I guess I have a clarification question. What you do mean by "graduate student" instead of "PhD candidate". In Canada, where I'm from, "graduate student" is a general term for both masters and PhD students. But in the US, these terms are almost interchangeable. I just want to clarify---are you entering a Masters program or a PhD program in the US? The 12 month bar does apply to PhD students, but I'm not 100% sure if it applies to Masters students. I am not sure if the US government distinguishes between Masters and PhD students for J-1 status, but it sounds like you already checked this? I know the 12 month bar will apply to me when I finish my PhD student J-1 status. However, the 12-month bar only applies if you've been on the J-1 status for 6 or more months (so if you are only in the US for a short program, it won't affect you). Second, applying for the Fulbright is not a good reason to take J-1 status from your school. If you do get the Fulbright, then Fulbright becomes the sponsor of your J-1 status, not your school. You will end up getting a DS-2019 and J-1 documentation from Fulbright if you win that award. **However, this is based only on my knowledge of the Canadian-US Fulbright program, and this was from 2012. I also didn't win the Fulbright in the end, but I was shortlisted so they gave me a ton of information, including instructions to get the DS-2019 from Fulbright instead of the school if I happen to be selected. But since my circumstances is different from yours, maybe you should double check with your future school's international office. If these are true and based on what you wrote, then the real advantage is 0.5 years of AT status, which is nice as long as there is no 12 month bar for you. Although, even if there is a 12-month bar, you can still attend a PhD program in the US on F-1 status, I think. If you are sure the drawbacks aren't relevant for you, then yeah, it does sound like J-1 gives a slightly better outcome!

These are both strong programs and it would be pretty hard for someone who didn't know you to answer this! It depends a lot on what you want to do. If you visited both programs, you might want to contact the students you met and ask them further questions that will help you decide!

Do both. Scan the document and email the pdf to your department's contact (probably the DGS) and also to the official place you need to send the document to. In your email, let them know a paper copy is also coming. Keep a copy for yourself too.

I'm on a J-1 visa. Academic Training does not have to be part of your degree requirements. My University's International students page is very clear that the AT employment has to be directly related to the student's field of study (not course of study). There is often confusion because F-1 CPT (curricular practical training) is for employment integral to your degree program. My school might be wrong, but I have seen this explained this way at other schools too. I was considering doing some work for a non-profit educational company in town (as an employed instructor) and I talked to my International Office and they said this is okay as long as I am okay with using up my AT training time working there. In the end, it would have only been 3 hours of work per week and the Department of State makes no distinction between 1 month of AT part-time work or 1 month of AT full time work. This work is clearly not related to degree requirements but it is related to my field of study. In my opinion, the most useful reasons to apply for the J visa is if you have a spouse that would like to work in the US, because the J-2 can apply for a EAD (this is why I am on J-1 so my J-2 spouse can work). There is also another small benefit, for STEM majors, F-1 OPT is currently 27 months (but it could be 36 months soon) while J-1 AT is 36 months. But I think the second thing isn't a very big benefit, considering the drawbacks of J-1 status. Here are some drawbacks you might also want to consider. 1. When your J-1 ends, you may be subject to a 12 or 24 month bar before getting another J-1 visa. The exact length of time depends on the two J-1 visa statuses in question. Generally, it's a 12 month bar between a J-1 PhD student and a J-1 postdoc (research scholar) or a J-1 professor position. This means that if you are a J-1 PhD student, then your first postdoc can be on AT. But your next postdoc or other academic job needs to be on an alternate visa status or outside of the US. H1-B is a common option and for some nationalities, TN is another valid option. 2. Some J-1 statuses require a 2 year home residency requirement. This means you have to reside in your home country for 2 years before you can get onto another status that would lead to immigration. Usually this happens if you are funded by your home government or your field is on a skills list as determined by your country. However, one can apply to get this requirement waived. 3. Being on J-1 status has higher insurance requirements which might cost you a little bit more money. Namely, it requires that your insurance plan covers the cost of repatriating your remains to your home country just in case. My student plan covers this already and this costs about $100/year for my spouse. So it's not really a huge deal, although it sounds grim. For us, it was worth it to deal with the extra hassles of (1) and (2) so that my spouse could work. A lot of these issues are only issues if I take certain career paths (e.g., wanting to do academic work in the US only forever). But with at least 5 years of PhD and 3 years of AT, when I was choosing between F-1 or J-1, it was a problem for 8-years-in-the-future-TakeruK, and who knows what could change in 8 years. It's was more important to take care of present-TakeruK (and spouse). If you have more Qs about J-1 status, I'd be happy to discuss what my experience has been!

Schools should strive to accept the most qualified people. However, I believe that the metrics we use to measure "qualified" are not fair and thus do not work (i.e. they don't always get us the most qualified people). An analogy would be that what if you are trying to select the fastest marathon runners, but for one population of marathon runners, the timers are off by 2.5 minutes. If you just used the time as measured by the timer, you will not get the fastest runners (i.e. most qualified applicants). This is not a perfect analogy (see below). So, this is why I think interviews or essays or other aspects of the application are also important and should be considered. Not everyone goes through life in the same way, with the same path and the goal of graduate programs (here, to clarify, I mean funded [i.e. paid like a salary] research-based PhD programs that are resource-limited and there are always more qualified candidates than positions, so the goal is to select the most qualified applicants that will make the best use of available resources in order to achieve the goals of the University and their funding agencies). In this case, I think it's really important to consider all aspects of a person when making an admission decision because using limited metrics can lead to incorrect or sub-optimal decisions. If you value a metric that does not fairly evaluate excellence in all candidates (e.g. that faulty marathon timer) then you are not going to be able to select the best candidates. An example of an existing faulty metric in my field is the Physics Subject GRE score. Many studies now show that this test score is a much better predictor of race and gender than graduate school success (see resolution adopted by our field's national society and references therein: http://aas.org/governance/council-resolutions#GRE). Now I agree that the timer analogy is not perfect. In the analogy, we know how wrong the timer was, so we can easily make a systematic correction---identify those who have faulty timers and subtract 2.5 minutes from their time! But, in reality, it's a lot harder. We don't know how faulty our metric are and we don't even know if there is a correction possible. But, we do know that the metric is faulty, so we need to do something! One way many graduate schools are already doing in my field is examining the applicant as a whole person instead of just their scores/stats. For example, a 3.7 GPA from a student who worked part-time to support their family during undergrad is different than a 3.7 GPA from someone who did not have to do this. Note that I said "different", not "better", because this is just one "slice" of the each of these fictional candidates (maybe the second person did not have to work because they achieved something else earlier in life that granted them a full ride scholarship etc.). What I'm getting at is I think if you consider the stats/scores weighted with the person's life experiences, then you will get closer to a fair and accurate metric than if you simply used the scores/stats without context. This is why I think contextual information, especially essays, should play a large role in a fair selection process. I do agree that knowing more information opens the way for unethical committees to discriminate, but I think that academia as a whole, should move towards this model of selection and do a better job of training committees and disciplining unethical committees instead of holding onto the status quo knowing that it's broken.

I'd echo what @fuzzylogician said. Based on this answer, it sounds like you "need" the PhD to achieve this because you certainly won't have the flexibility of following an academic career without the PhD. So, at this point, the second part of fuzzy's post matters: Will getting a PhD decrease your ability to find non-academic jobs in the future? (i.e. "overqualified"). If not, then I think picking the PhD makes sense as long as it makes financial sense to you (since that's a personal thing, I can't really advise on that). When I say, "don't do a PhD unless you are 100% sure you want to do it", I mean that you are 100% sure you do need a PhD to achieve your goals. And if your goals include flexibility to be in academia, then you need a PhD. To me, it doesn't mean that you have to be 100% set on academia before you start your PhD. I don't think this is realistic either. I came into my PhD program with one career goal being academia but not making that my sole goal. And, this is normal---our school survey incoming grad students and compare the % of students who enter wanting to work in academia with the % who leave feeling the same way. Both numbers are below 100%.

Yeah, back in 2010 I didn't realise how much more an inkjet would cost me in the long run. I think at that time, I was looking at $150 for an inkjet and $300 for a laser printer. But, I easily spent the difference in ink over just a few years! And now I see that laser printers, even colour ones, are around $200 on amazon. Go for laser if you can!!

I don't think this is completely accurate. There are two different possible cases here. First, let's assume both partners are about equally competitive to a certain school (each partner's competitiveness can differ from school to school). This means you will likely both be accepted or both be rejected. In the case where the cutoff that the school makes is in between you two, then it could be possible that one partner is accepted and one is rejected. I do not think a school would reject an applicant that they would have otherwise accepted just because they are married instead of single. After all, there are other ways you two could make it work out (e.g. the partner that didn't get accepted might get accepted to another school in the same city). I think it makes the most sense to accept whatever applicants they would normally accept and then through conversation with the applicants, figure out if the accepted partner will actually take the offer. If there is a very limited amount of offers they can make (i.e. they don't want to make an offer and have it declined), then they might talk to the accepted partner first to gauge whether or not there is a chance that not being accepted together will work. Second, let's look at the case where one partner is more competitive than the other for a specific school (again, for each school/program, this can change). So, one partner will be accepted for sure (let's call that person A) and one did not originally get accepted (let's call that person B). If B is not at the same level as the typical applicant that they accept, then I do not think most schools will accept B to also get A. If B does not have the right fit or the ability to succeed in the program, accepting B in order to get A is not worth it. And, if B does not succeed (i.e. fail quals or candidacy), then the school might also lose A if both partners decide to go elsewhere. If B is around the "cutoff" and is approximately as qualified as other candidates that they would accept, then because B is married to A, this may give B a slight preference (or maybe they were overlooked in an initial review, and then a re-review finds them qualified). But I really doubt it makes a big difference because there are so many factors that come into selecting grad students (e.g. balance of research interests across the whole cohort, which professors have funding, etc.). That is, I think it is very rare that disclosing your marital status will make a difference in either spouse's admittance**. A married person isn't going to get rejected because the school decided not to accept their spouse. And, a partner who was marked for rejection isn't likely to be admitted because the other partner is a great student. (**Note: Here, I'm not considering cases of discrimination where, for some reason or other, the admissions committee thinks that being married means you're not as serious about academia or other discriminatory things like that). Overall, my advice is just to be honest and not try to play tricks or games. This does not mean you need to disclose your marital status in your application. Many people don't include this information (whether or not their partner is applying to the same school) because the point of the application is to focus on you---your achievements, your experience, your qualifications, not your partner. If you are directly asked in the application (for the non-admissions related reasons above), then be honest. You can choose whether or not to indicate to the admissions committee that your partner is also applying. I think as long as you two tell them as soon as one person receives news, then the timing doesn't matter.

By wireless sensor, do you mean Bluetooth or an Ethernet port? I am pretty sure most Airs come with Bluetooth (unless you have a really old one) but I know that Airs do not have an Ethernet port (not necessary for this setup though). Wireless keyboards and mice generally connect via Bluetooth, which Airs should support. If not, you can also buy a Bluetooth adaptor (e.g. http://www.amazon.com/Medialink-Bluetooth-Adapter-Energy-Technology/dp/B004LNXO28) I have a wireless printer that works great, and most wireless printers also have a cable for you to connect to in case you don't want to use wireless. The printer I have was purchased in 2010 so it's quite old but it has worked well. It's the Epson Stylus NX510 (http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/jsp/Product.do?sku=C11CA48201), which is an "All-in-one" printer, i.e. it does photocopies, scans, fax, and print. All wirelessly, which is nice, and it has a cable for wired operation. It looks like it's discontinued now but there is a replacement model, the NX625. The big downside is that it uses ink crazy fast. It's super annoying because as a colour printer, it has 4 ink cartridges (CYMK). But when one cartridge runs out and you replace it, it does a calibration sequence that uses ink from all 4 cartridges. A lot of ink! It got to the point where replacing one cartridge and doing the calibration uses so much ink that another colour will run out, meaning I have to repeat all of it again. And ink is not cheap, if you buy the Epson branded cartridges, it's like $70 for a full set of 4, but you can get individual cartridges refilled at Costco for $7-$8 each. I got so tired of paying tons of money for ink that I just stopped replacing the cartridges. I do all my printing at school/work now since we have unlimited printing. My printer just sits at home as a scanner now (although I also have free access to a scanner at work). I do scanning of sensitive things at home (e.g. making a digital copy of my passport or something) and regular scanning at work (so much faster).

In the only interview I had (most of my programs do not interview), they asked me what are the important things to me when selecting a school. I told them that it had to be a place where both my spouse and I could do well and that location and my spouse's decision is equally weighted with things like research. The faculty members interviewing me said that they liked my answer and agreed that it's important to think beyond research for a decision. I was offered admission in the end. So I don't think being honest about my status (and even how my decision would be made) affected me negatively. At other schools, during the visit weekends, the schools knew that my spouse had as much say in where we'd move to as me. One school even included my spouse in the events so they were trying to recruit my spouse as much as they were trying to recruit me. We appreciated that a lot!

All of these things are bad things that should not be going on at an interview. Faculty and staff at public and private universities should not be able to ask these questions or make admissions decisions based on these factors. When the term "good fit" is used in the context of admissions though, most people do not mean good fit as in a compatible religious or political belief. I think there should be consequences for schools that engage in this bad admissions practice, but I don't think preventing interviews at all is a good solution.

Two points: First, almost all universities receive federal funds, including private universities (through grants etc.) and therefore are subject to federal laws. Schools will lose their funding if they do not follow the law, and you are right about the importance of schools following the law. Second, I don't think you have the right definition of free speech. Free speech means you can say what you want without legal repercussions but there can still be other consequences. If you apply to my department and in the interview, you tell us that the moon is made out of cheese and that all of the scientific studies on the moon is all wrong and that nothing we say can ever convince you that the moon is not made of cheese, then you will not be accepted. Your right to free speech is still protected: we do not physically stop you or restrain you from saying your belief on the moon. We do not arrest you or compel the government to throw you in jail for this speech. However, this belief (specifically, the refusal to consider future evidence and modify beliefs) is incompatible with the scientific process and there is no way you would be successful as a graduate student in our field. It shows that you are not properly prepared for scientific research and therefore, we will not accept you into the program. This is not a violation of your free speech rights. When I first started replying, I wasn't sure if people were meaning examples like the one I just gave, or examples like a school only accepting people from a certain religion. Note that free speech is not the only law that schools have to follow. For example, Title IX does not allow schools to discriminate on the basis of sex, requires fair treatment for pregnant students, requires equal opportunities for all students, and requires the school to protect students from sexual harassment and bullying. Therefore, if you are at a school, a faculty member who says something like "I think women aren't good scientists and so I never accept any of them into my lab" will face consequences** for these words. These actions are not protected by freedom of speech. (**Note: I'm not saying that they will be fired, as the consequence needs to be appropriate to what they did. It could be a range of things from education to dismissal from the university).