TakeruK

Also want to say that I'm glad to hear you're doing well and good luck with your exam coming up

You are not taxed on your tuition waiver and you get credits for any mandatory supplies (or books etc.) that are specifically required for the course and required of every student. But I don't think you get much more credits than that. You get more deductions if you are a resident though---I file as a non-resident alien, so I can't take the standard deduction (I have to itemize, but there isn't much I can itemize). Smaller stipends and/or larger amounts of deductions will mean a lower effective tax rate!

This is a very personal choice based on what you and your partner want in your career and life goals and what you value. I don't think anyone can answer your question for you. What I can say is that if you are looking for "approval" (not that you need it from us, but I understand that for big decisions, sometimes it helps to hear another person say "no that's not crazy") then I think all of your plans are sane and reasonable plans that other students have followed and succeeded in. It's okay to go to the top 25 school because you value your relationship. I know many students (and faculty!) who chose this path and succeeded. It's okay to commute two hours because you want to live in the same place but attend schools in different places. I know a student that commuted across the Canada/US border to go to school. It's okay to live apart for a couple of years so that each of you have their own best chances at their career. I know people doing this right now and people who did this in the past. Of course, I know about students who don't have it work out either. Sometimes a couple goes to the same school to live together but then the one that compromised resents it and they break up (divorced in this case). Sometimes, a couple goes to live in different places and decide that they are better off without a relationship. Sometimes one person does end up sacrificing their career for the sake of the other. Sometimes each person goes to the best school for them and are still miserable and do not succeed in their career after all. But all of this is also part of life---you aren't guaranteed relationship success if you prioritize relationship and you aren't guaranteed career success if you prioritize career. To me, this means there is no right choice and there's no wrong choice as long as you make one that is best fitting with what you currently value. Finally, I will also say this: the "two body problem in academia" (look it up if you haven't heard the term before) is tricky and tough to "solve". This will not be the last time you two will have to face this dilemma. So my advice regarding this is to remember that this will come up later, so it's not like "okay we'll make decision X and it will be tough for a few years but things will be better later!" Maybe so, but also maybe not. I would think about long term happiness too when deciding what is best for you both! Good luck

Stipends are taxed. The school does give you exactly the amount they state in the offer letter, but you will owe the US Government taxes (which the schools may withhold on their behalf, but the school still pays you the full amount). It's really hard for others to guess how much tax you will pay because everyone's situation is different. On average though, expect to pay about 10% to 15% of your stipend as taxes. These are good guideline numbers to budget for. As kalexand says, graduate students do not pay FICA payroll taxes (medicare and social security) so we are taxed about 6% less than non-student employees.

Don't accept the offer and decline it. Just ask for more time to think about it. You don't have to mention the other school. If they say no, then do the preliminary acceptance thing but don't pay the deposit and "officially" sign the letter before April 15. Backing out after the preliminary acceptance is still bad form, for the reasons fencergirl stated but if you don't have any other choice, then you gotta do what you gotta do! But try for an extension first. Don't worry about the "second choice" thing, no one will be offended that they are not automatically your first choice.

I want to echo what was said about "not teaching is not the same as gone". They may still be around in the department, which means you can still interact with them. Some example ways of doing what you asked about is: 1. Attending department seminars and then talking to the prof before/after the seminar (usually there is tea/cookies or some sort of refreshment). 2. Dropping in on office hours to discuss relevant things. For example, a seminar related to the research that you would eventually work with this prof on. 3. Other interactions of your own planning. Maybe when you start, you can express your interest in working with this person again and perhaps you can discuss some relevant papers together (by email or Skype). This can happen even if the prof is out of the country! I admit that a lot of this thinking is coming from a STEM field, where we start research almost right away and there is rarely such a big difference between "coursework" and "research" stages. This means that almost all of my interactions with my research advisor(s) have not been classroom related so I never thought of courses as the only way to get to know a professor. So, a lot of my thinking here is that you just start doing small research tasks with the professor on the side. But maybe this is not possible. I would hope that the prof would still be interested in discussing a paper with you something like once a month if they are just on a research sabbatical elsewhere or something similar.

I had one visit with my spouse and for the "academic" part, such as research meetings with professors and students, it was alone and my spouse find their own things to do around campus and in the town. It would be weird if your spouse was also part of these meetings, in my opinion, unless they are also a student in the field. However, my spouse joined us for all of the social events (and spouses/partners of current students often joined for this part too). I would say though: don't have your SO be a "surprise guest"! Let the school know ahead of time what is happening and they will likely make it work. The school I visited was very happy to have my spouse visit as well. They even set up some optional activities for my spouse, arranged a work space in the building for my spouse and provided campus maps, city maps etc. I also say it's important to let them know your plans because some plans might be depend on the number of people (e.g. dinner reservations, whether or not you're sharing a hotel room etc. and having an unexpected guest there could be unprofessional and awkward). So make sure the school knows about your guest, if they do not already know!

Yes, I agree with this and I think the right thing to do is to take the Canadian license back to the issuing authority. They will take the license back and reissue you a new one when you return to Canada because as you said, you can only use one license at a time. My issue with the US DMVs is that the US DMV should not be the one "deactivating" our Canadian licenses (by punching a hole or putting stickers on it).

Just remember that this is just one metric, and there's a lot of reasons why people don't like this metric. For example, h-index doesn't include information about where the author appears in the author list. Maybe this doesn't matter as much for established professors because most of their papers will have them in whatever author position is typical for the advisor in their field (in mine, it's 2nd author, in others it's last author). However, this still does not distinguish between papers where the prof writes with their lab members and other papers where the prof might appear as a collaborator but the work is actually done by a different lab (i.e. not representative of what your experience in the lab could be). Also, the h-index doesn't account for time. Someone who used to be really active but have slowed down a lot in the last 10 years would still have a high h-index but this doesn't represent the current impact of their lab group to the field, and this is something a new student would also be interested in knowing. Like any other numerical index, it's important to know the limitations

I agree with MathCat, $24,000/year is a good amount of funding, especially for Saskatchewan. $0 and $5000 for Victoria and Vancouver are not enough to live on and to me, an unfunded or basically unfunded (as in the case of UBC) offer is the same as a rejection, especially in Canadian schools where it's normal to fund MA students. Note that you will also have to pay tuition from your offers in Canada. So, the $0 offer from Victoria means you will have to use your savings (or get a loan) to pay tuition and also pay for a place to live, food to eat, etc. At UBC, the $5000 is just enough to cover most of the tuition, but you will have to find your own way to pay for rent and food and Vancouver is extremely expensive. So, given that you say USask is the only school offering reasonable funding, and that your advisor there is an expert and that there is a great project waiting for you that fits all of your needs, I don't see why you would take any other offer. The USask one sounds perfect!

Just imagining some possibilities: 1. You run into a prof at a conference and they tell you the good news in person. 2. A prof from the school you applied to is visiting your department and they tell you the good news in person. 3. You have a friend already in the program who is on the visiting student planning committee so they find out who's coming, see that you're accepted and tell you by Facebook message. 4. Whoever is filling out the survey entry wanted to be more anonymous and so they picked the most ambiguous option. etc. etc.

Yes, that's correct. Unless you are already in the US (for an internship, another job, undergrad etc.), you would likely pay no (or very little) taxes in your first tax year in the US as you are only present for a few months. The refund process takes awhile. You have to mail in your tax return (no electronic filing allowed for us non-resident aliens) so you have to account for the time it takes for you to mail it in. I think the IRS says 4-6 weeks if you are asking for a refund check mailed to you. I always choose electronic bank transfer, and I see the money in my account approximately one month after I mail the return. Funny thing is, when I owe them money and send them a check, they always cash it within one week but it takes 4 weeks for me to get a refund

My school has a dental plan that is optional (the health plan isn't "optional"---you must either take the school plan or provide proof that you are covered by another plan, e.g. your partner's or parent's plan). We can choose to pay $120 or so per year for pretty good dental coverage (I pay about $4 for cleanings, $6 for x-rays and if I need something done on a tooth, it's $50 deductible and the plan covers about 80% of the cost). So, I am definitely on this plan and I love it. All plans, whether it's ACA or private or school plans, are required to follow ACA guidelines because it's national law. So, birth control must be $0 on every plan in the United States, as far as I know. As part of our student government, we actually recently had to fight our healthcare provider to cover the Nuvaring (at $0). They argued that Nuvaring is a brand name version of the oral contraceptive because they are both "hormonal methods" (despite that any sane person will tell you that they are applied very differently!) and thus they would meet ACA guidelines by covering oral contraceptives and not Nuvaring. We pushed back on this and eventually we won and they agreed to cover the Nuvaring (it's not clear if ACA by itself would have compelled them to do this, we had also used previous agreements/contracts to demonstrate they are required to cover this). ACA open enrollment is only November through February, but you can always enroll when you have a "life changing event" like starting a new school/job! Here's one suggestion/idea: if your school allows you to drop out of their student plan partway through the year, then consider starting with the school plan and then switching to ACA if you find the ACA plan is better. Sometimes, they make you stay for a whole year though and unfortunately, the ACA enrollment season of Nov-Feb compared to the school year starting Aug-Sep might mean that you won't be able to switch without a gap in coverage. (Plus, you have to be sure you are actually eligible for ACA if you have a student plan option).

You are not legally obligated to attend the school you accepted. However, you will damage yourself professionally by backing out of commitments like this. I know it's too late for this one, but in the future, you should never accept an offer until you are ready to give up or decline all other applications! I think you have two options now: 1. Tell the school that you accepted that you acted too soon and would like more time to think about your offer. 2. Do nothing, and see if you get into the other schools. If another school makes you a better offer, and you think it's worth the harm of backing out of your commitment, you should do what's best for you and back out of your commitment. I highly highly recommend path #1. By doing #2 you are hurting any future opportunities with this school. If your field is small, the professors may remember you and it can hurt you in the future too. Also, because you told this school that you will attend, they probably already saved a spot for you so by waiting until March/April to back out of your acceptance, you are taking up a spot that could have been offered to someone else (but now they cannot because they thought you were coming) and they may not be able to get someone else they wanted because they saved the spot for you. Again, it's up to you but I would highly recommend the honest route and admit that you were too hasty in making your original decision and ask for more time to make a choice (maybe ask for an extension until April 15).

I want to add a few things: 1. Maybe it does vary from field to field, but when people in my field (whether it's grad students, postdocs, or faculty member) says that a person is "competitive" for something, it doesn't mean that they have a good chance of winning that thing. For most people, when we say "competitive", it means that it is worth your time and money to apply for it. I would say that if something has a 10% selection rate, I would call everyone in the top 30% "competitive". Note that this means a lot more "competitive" people get rejected than accepted. 2. Grad school admissions are not just a function of how competitive you are or how qualified you are. They don't just set a qualification threshold and take people above that. They don't just rank people by competitiveness and take the top chunk. There are tons of unknown factors and factors you cannot control that goes into the decision making process. For example, there may be extra funding for subfield X in one year, so they take more students in subfield X. This means that if the top 5 students applying are in Subfield Y but they only have 2 spots for Subfield Y, then maybe only students ranked #1 and #2 would get in, students ranked #3-#5 would get rejected, but students ranked #6 or below might still get in because they are meeting other needs. Competitiveness is just one factor in admissions. 3. Profs tend to be encouraging and will generally overstate how good you are. Part of it is because a lot of people don't like saying bad things to their students. But another reason is that overstating your value does a lot less harm than understating your value. No professor wants to be the prof that said a negative thing and discouraged an otherwise good applicant from applying. If they say great things about you to you and you don't get in, well that sucks but it's not as bad as you passing up on an opportunity that would have been great for you had you not been discouraged. I do this too---for the undergrads I've supervised, if they ask if they have a chance at X, I always phrase it in the positive. 4. To the statements that "if you don't change your application, the results won't change", I have to both agree and disagree. I'll start with agreement here: Overall, the competitiveness of the applicant pool does not change very much from year to year. So, if you are approximately in the 80th percentile of applicants this year, you will probably be similarly ranked next year. In addition, if you reapply to the same school with the same profile, you will probably get a similar result. 5. However, I disagree that all your results will be the same if you reapplied with the same profile. Again, maybe this varies from field to field, but a lot of factors that you cannot control (see #2 above). I've noticed this with my program admissions as well. In some years, we make 8-10 offers. In other years, we've only made 4 offers (especially after a big government funding cut). This means it's likely that a student who got accepted in the year with 8-10 offers might not have been accepted in the year with 4 offers (or vice-versa, a student that got rejected in the year with 4 offers might get accepted if they reapplied in a year with 8-10 offers). Also, it feels like we tend to accept students with a certain goal each year (e.g. one prof needs more students, or we want to expand a subfield). So, if you happen to be applying in the subfield we're not looking for, you have to be extra good to be accepted.

I don't know about Oregon specifically, but as a Canadian moving to California, I had to redo the whole California licensing process (written test and road test) because California does not recognize any international licenses. However, I did not give up my Canadian license. In fact, you should never surrender your Canadian license to anyone else but the authority that issued said license! I don't know what your friend did, but if you go to Oregon, do not give them your Canadian license! (**When I told the California DMV that I had a Canadian license, they asked to see it and stuck a "NOT VALID IN CALIFORNIA" sticker on it. I agree that it's not valid but when I got home, I took the sticker off because 1) I don't plan on using it in California, and 2) the California DMV doesn't have the authority to attach stickers to my Canadian license lol). I don't know what happened with your friend. In California, when you take the written test, you get a probationary license (need to have an adult licensed driver with you) that is valid for 1 year or until you pass your road test. When you arrive in Oregon, you should go to the DMV and do the paperwork to get a brand new license. Maybe your friend is getting 90 day visitor permit licenses or something weird (again, sorry I don't know how Oregon works). Or, maybe he needs to pass a road test before he can get a longer than 90 day license. In California, you should approach the licensing process as if you are a new driver. I would not even say that you already have a license elsewhere unless they ask you about it. You get a 5 year license (like in most Canadian provinces) when you pass the road test.

Google Scholar is a good resource as others said, but be warned: it doesn't actually count citations! It makes an estimate based on Google's (very good) algorithms. However, I find that this overcounts my citations---I like seeing the inflated numbers for my own self-esteem but it's not actually true! It might be okay to compare Google Scholar results within themselves though, assuming the inflation is the same. In my field, there are 2 or 3 major journals and you can always search individual journals without library access. And you can always get some basic information on each article for free, such as the abstract, author list, and metrics such as "how many papers cited this one". Usually you just have to pay for the full text. Also, we have a abstract database service that is pretty good at keeping track of stats. Here's an example page for an important paper in my field: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010ApJ...718L.145W There is a count of total citations next to "Citation History" and you can even see histograms of the breakdown by year etc. Maybe you can find something similar for your field? Finally, if you are just choosing between 2 PIs, then in addition to what others said about the non-paper related factors, I want to make another suggestion. Instead of looking for papers written by the PI, instead, find the papers that are written by the student. I know that in some fields, the student isn't the first author, so I mean look for the papers that are produced by the student's work. Because chances are, papers like these would be what you will write in a few years. You can find these papers by finding out what the students have been working on and matching them up to papers produced by the lab. When you look at these papers, you can do things like: 1. Compare papers of different students/projects with each other. Are they of similar writing style/quality? This will give you a sense of whether or not the PI and the lab are hands-on with writing and you can see if there is a similar style across all papers that the PI is involved in, or if students generally write everything themselves and the PI is just signing off on them. 2. Are the papers introducing novel research and results? Or, are the students just part of a big research machine and they are just the gears in a research protocol that the PI already established? That is, are students thinking up their own ideas and publishing them or are they just doing what the PI tells them to do? 3. Are the students producing interesting research---are the papers being cited by people outside of their lab/collaboration? In my opinion, I think the quality of the papers produced by the lab and the students is more important than just the quantity. And I think you especially want to look at papers produced from student projects because that's what your papers may look like in a few years.

To me, this sounds like a nice way of them saying that they don't want to swap chapters with you. Not everyone wants to trade chapters with their colleagues for review. In all of the departments I've been to, there is currently no culture of swapping chapters with peers for review. I'm not exactly sure why. One contributing factor is that I think all of us feel that our advisor can provide the best comments possible so there's no point swapping with another student before we submit to our advisor. Maybe it's because when students swap, the small amount of improvement we gain in our manuscript is not worth the time invested in reading the other person's work. Also, we don't want to waste the other person's time because if they make a suggestion but the advisor makes a different one, we'll almost always pick the advisor's suggestion. In addition, in the time it takes to read another person's work, you can be making progress on a parallel project and the amount gained in having another person read your work isn't as much as the amount gained just working on a different project while your advisor reads your work. In my department, it's common for students to workshop single sentences or small paragraphs with each other. Especially when we want to make sure we are conveying an important idea clearly in our paper. Or maybe we will consult with each other on questions of grammar (e.g. when to use "which" vs "that") especially since many of us do not use English as our first language. So, usually it's much more common for us to trade things like conference abstracts or other short pieces of writing but pretty rare to swap things that will take a significant amount of time to read. In my field, the bottom line is getting your chapter read by a student & the advisor isn't going to improve it that much more than just the advisor reading it, so it's not worth the time swapping chapters (not only will you spend more time reading another chapter, but if you want to get your chapter to your advisor by Week X, you need to get it your peer reader by Week X-1).

I can't speak for every case because I think a lot of this is case-by-case. But when my spouse signed up for Obamacare (ACA), they asked about me as well. The Marketplace clearly told me that because I have a student plan, I am not eligible for Obamacare/ACA. However, this was because my student plan is already subsidized (the full cost is $2700 per year but I only pay $450). Maybe if your student plan is more expensive than ACA, they will still let you use ACA. However, I find that the student plan is often way better than the Obamacare plan. The copays are usually a lot lower and prescription drug coverage is often better. So, even though the premium might be higher, your total cost out of pocket might be lower overall. So, I would try to compare the two plans based on how often you use your health coverage! Some example numbers from my experience with my student plan (of course, your plan may vary) and the state ACA plans: Prescriptions cost me about a few dollars per fill---we pay 20% of the negotiated cost of the drug. ACA plans usually have set prices for tiers: Tier 1 is $12, Tier 2 is $35, Tier 3 is $50. There has been prescriptions where I paid $5 but ACA plan holders pay $50. My student plan deductible is $150 and out of pocket maximum is $1500. The Silver ACA plan deductible is $2000 and out of pocket max is $4000. My student plan is $2700 per year (if I were to pay full cost) and the Silver ACA plan is $3000 per year ($250/month in California). Copay for a doctor's visit is $15 on my plan; $45 on ACA. Finally, my student plan is often customized to what students want/need. Our school works with students to figure out what the plan should cover. For example, mental health coverage is great at my school's plan. Each year, we get the first 25 visits to a mental health professional absolutely free (no copay even) and then every visit after that is $15 per visit. Other plans will have you pay the copay of something like $50 visit for all the visits.

Hi everyone, I'm putting on my "moderator hat" for this post. I see that there is some disagreement and debate going on here, which is great, because that's how we learn things. But, this is a reminder to keep the discussion about the issues debated and refrain from personal attacks on other users. You can disagree with someone without calling them names. In addition, it is not acceptable to take the argument to PMs. Play nicely. P.S. Our forum rules do not require posts to stay on topic (within reason) so I want to also remind all users not to tell other users what they can or cannot post. If the community wants the conversation to move towards a particular topic, then it will go that way. If the community does not want to address an irrelevant point, then it can ignore it and continue on the topics it finds interesting.

You will likely get funded but the amount can vary a lot. I've seen offers at UC schools that range from not livable to pretty decent. As svent says, you will have to wait and see! For your field, almost everyone is always funding, so I think the wait is because the source (and thus amount) of funding is not yet determined, instead of whether or not you will actually be funded. Don't accept any offers yet, just wait and see!

Obviously, what each person needs (or wants) to eat and what each person considers a good food budget is a personal choice. I completely agree with you that unhealthy food is way cheaper than healthy food and that it's worth considering how what you eat affects your mental health when deciding on your personal budget. But this is all very personal choices and I feel like you are saying if people don't eat like you, then they are somehow screwing up their body and happiness. I'm glad you found what works for you and it's good that you know what you need to budget for food so that you can maintain the life you want and be healthy and happy! However, that doesn't mean the same numbers that work for you would work for everyone else. As I said, different people have different food needs. Not everyone wants to work out a lot or eat a lot of protein to be happy. And, in some places, the cost of rent dwarfs the cost of food, so when considering whether or not your stipend is enough, rent is often the primary factor.

At the career fairs and through other events run by the career center at my school, almost all internship recruitment are directed towards undergrads. But there are a few opportunities. In addition, the other challenge is getting time off from your graduate program to do the internship. At my school, you have to officially go on leave ("detached duty" is the official term they use here) in order to do an internship. Most supervisors here do not want their students to leave their regular research duties for an internship in the summer. So, if this is in your plans, you might want to find out how open the professors at Rice are about this. Some departments might be more open than others!

Here is the short answer: Expect about 12% of your total stipend to be taxed federally. (It's a slight overestimate for most people). So, when you make your budget, remove 12%. Long answer: I find this page very useful in explaining the US tax system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States Basically, it's a progressive tax system. The brackets that concern most grad students are 10% for the first $9275 of taxable income and 15% for the next bracket (up to $37,650, which is usually more than most stipends). You have to determine your taxable income. Non-residents cannot take the standard deduction ($6300) but we do get the personal exemption ($4,000). Since you have a treaty for $5000 of non-taxable income, then if you meet the requirements of that treaty, the first $9000 of your income is non-taxable. Quick estimate; 1850 per month for 12 months is 22,200. Subtract off $4000 (personal exemption) and $5000 (treaty) and your federal taxable income is $13,200. The first $9275 is taxed at 10%, so you owe $927.50 on that part. The remainder (13,200-9275=3925) is taxed at 15% so you owe $588.75 on that portion. Therefore the total tax you will probably owe is about $1520. Then you have to determine state taxes, which are a lot harder to do but it seems like it would be less. Since you have your treaty, it looks like your total tax will be more like 10% than 12%. Of course, this is just my estimate based on my very limited knowledge---consult a tax lawyer in the US when you arrive if you are not sure! Or, you'll find that tax software does a very good job too. Note: You may read about FICA payroll taxes (medicaid and social security). As a student, we do not have to pay these taxes, usually. --- To your other questions: 1. Whether you get taxes withheld from your paycheck depends on the source of your income, your tax status and your school's HR office. For my school, they withhold 14% of all international student income. So, we always get money back at the end of the year when we file our return, because we always overpay. But for American students, if it's a fellowship income, they do not withhold taxes. Therefore, if you do not have taxes withheld, you may have to make quarterly tax payments (every 3 months) to avoid a fee at the end of the year. When you get your first paycheck, you will know right away if they withheld taxes or not and then take appropriate action. 2. Everyone's situation is different so it's hard to guess what deductions you would qualify for. Probably not very much though, as Non-Resident Aliens cannot take most of the deductions. One thing that is certain is that you can deduct expenses that you incur for 1) filing taxes and 2) buying mandatory school supplies such as books. Mandatory supplies are only specific things that you must absolutely have for the course, such as textbooks. Paper and pencils do not count unless the course specifies that you have to buy a specific type of pencil etc. I would use tax software to help determine what kind of deductions are possible. It works very well, the software will ask you a lot of questions and from those answers, it will figure out what you are eligible for.

I just want to say that you should believe what the actual students say about their program instead of what others "know" about the program. I am at a program that is like School A in that there are lots of stories about how hard it is here. And it may be true that some people have had bad experiences years ago and/or people in other departments have had very bad experiences right now, but things are actually quite good right now for my specific program. Of course, current students may also be lying (but I'm not quite sure why they would) so you should use your own critical thinking abilities to determine who to believe / listen to. Just want to say that often "hearsay" about how tough / not tough a school could be wrong, especially if you are able to get information directly from current students.