TakeruK

My opinion is that this is fine, don't worry about it. Two reasons: First, the only ways they would find out that the paper was submitted after the application deadline would be if 1) one of the admissions committee member is the editor or reviewer for your paper, or 2) when the paper gets published, someone checks the "submitted/received on" date. Second, and more importantly, this is not a problem because no one will care. If they did notice the discrepancy and asked you about it, just be honest and say what you said here. It's fine.

When I said not succeeding, I meant that they did not succeed in their goal to get admitted to grad school where they were working. I don't know how well they did in their classes, but doing well in classes doesn't get you admitted into grad school. @rising_star is right that getting a non-research job at a University is very competitive since it comes with great benefits. I pay attention to the job postings at my school because I know some people (who aren't students) that want to work here, and only one person I know has actually got a job and it was after a year of applying and interviewing for several positions unsuccessfully. Also, I see the job posting say something like "minimum 3 years of experience" but when the person is hired, they are introduced to us and the department head often tell us a little about their history and we find out they already have 10-15+ years of experience. (P.S. my school only gives tuition benefits after the probationary period ends, which is usually 6 months) So, my opinion is that the energy and time spent getting a non-research job and taking courses as a non-degree student might be better spent trying to get research experience instead, if your goal is a PhD program. And like rising_star said, you don't need to do research in your specific topic of interest---just do research in general!

Since Vanderbilt already told you that they can't make a decision in less than 30 days, I would ask for an extension at the UC program. Ask them for 30 more days to make the decision. If they refuse, then you just have to make a choice. It's good that you asked and tried, but "possible publications" are not usually meaningful. So I am not surprised that they would not consider it.

It's not a good idea to lie. Usually schools have a rejection list ready to go before they officially send out the rejection notice. However, if you are already on this list, and you call to ask for an update, then they will usually be able to tell you over the phone that sorry, you were not accepted. So, this might be why sometimes rejections appear in the Results Survey early, maybe it's because someone called and got an early rejection. So, if you need to also know (e.g. for planning a joint trip or something), you could call and see if there is an update. But I wouldn't do this unless you absolutely had to know.

I think working as a research assistant / lab tech to gain experience to improve your profile for later PhD admission is a viable path. I have known many students who did it this way. However, I also know students who don't succeed in this way. So it's not a sure thing. I think a big difference is what your part time job at the school is. I think your work experience will help you get into a PhD program much more than taking courses. So, if you are working in your PhD field then the work you're doing will go a long way towards improving your chances at getting into a program later. The courses probably won't help very much though, however, it's good to have a few things that show you are still strong academically. I don't think your age (27) is so old that you'll be treated any different.

It's not that farfetched, however, I've found that there are very few programs that have the money to provide this support. In general, I think graduate students are expected to pay for this move out of pocket (however, you can deduct it on your taxes!). My school doesn't offer money but they do offer a $2,500 no-interest, no-fee loan so you can use it to pay for things like this (you get a 6 month grace period, then you make 18 equal monthly instalments to pay back the $2,500 you were loaned). The only school I've ever seen offer a moving stipend was a Canadian school and the offer was that students get up to a total of $1000 for both the recruitment visit and moving costs. So, in reality, you would only generally have less than $200 for moving expenses, unless you skip the recruitment weekend. I would encourage you to still ask and find out. But of course, try to phrase it as an inquiry if there is such a fund, rather than a demand! I think these are great things to ask about. Again, I would highly encourage you to ask them as an inquiry into whether or not the fund/support exists, instead of a demand. At least, do so at first. Usually, for department-level stuff, it will be unlikely for you to get something that the other students do not also get. One program at my school has a $1500 tech budget for incoming students (almost everyone uses it to buy a laptop). My program has a $400 travel fund for all first year students to attend any conference. The idea is that you might not have anything to present in your first year, so your advisor might not send you; however, attending conferences is important for professional development so this money is for you to go even if you cannot present. Since these programs are usually things that faculty have fought hard for to get benefits for their students, if you phrase as a demand asking for special treatment, it will probably not go well. Most departments will want to support all the students in the same way. On the other hand, if you are talking about specific advisor-to-student funding/support, then the dynamic is a little different. I would instead phrase things as questions on whether or not the advisor can send me to conferences (e.g. "How often do your students present at meetings?") etc. You would want to find out how well funded they are etc.

If you are an international student, it will be almost impossible to get a loan from a US bank right away. You might be able to get a personal loan later on, once you have built some US credit history, but this would be at a pretty high interest rate and you will be charged interest immediately as it is not a student loan. Basically loans are only a good idea for international students for absolute emergencies (but look for on-campus help first) or very low interest loans for things like a car loan. An international student may be able to take out a student loan from their home country though. Some countries will allow their citizens to take a subsidized government loan to study abroad. --- All that said, my recommendation would actually to be to not attend a school where the stipend is not enough for what you need/want to live on. However, I realise this is not practical advice for everyone because some people have high expenses (e.g. medical, dependent support etc.) where you may have no choice but to take out loans. You don't have to justify yourself of course, but I'm just saying that maybe some schools just have stipends that are too low and it's worth considering another better-funded offer more strongly.

Sorry, when I said typical, I meant that in Canada, if one was seeking post-graduate degrees, one would go BA->MA->PhD, while in the US, they go BA->PhD. Oh okay, so the difference is less than $25k if you do get funding? I guess the next question is to research the typical funding for a MA Criminology student at the school. Usually graduate students will also work as TAs but if it's a one year coursework-only program, maybe there isn't much funding. I had originally thought there would be more funding---e.g. a Physics MSc might pay about $24,000/year, then you pay $7000 for tuition, so you're left with about $17,000, so I was comparing the two options with this number as the income if you went to the MA program and an additional $25,000 if you took the job. So with this info, I'd probably say to wait and see to find out the MA's funding options are (did you apply to things like the Ontario Graduate Scholarship?). Then you'll know the actual cost of doing the MA first and can make a better decision! And for the full time job, is this the type of job you're seeking in the long term? That is, is the pay and benefits equal to what you are expecting/hoping for a typical job in your field? I think this is important distinction because if the full time job is just the standard/typical entry-level full time position in your field, then maybe it's worth doing the MA first and waiting for a better opportunity. But if this job offer is an especially good one that pays better or has better benefits than the typical position, then you might want to take advantage of it now since it might not come up again after your MA. So I would suggest doing research on what other companies are paying their entry level full time employees etc. too.

Wow, this is a tough decision. Let me first make sure that I have some basic assumptions right: 1. You're Canadian and the typical path after undergrad in your field is MA (and maybe PhD eventually but also not doing a PhD is fine too). 2. This is a Canadian MA program which means it's a funded program (you say you'd finish with no debt). Tuition is something on the order of $7000 per year, like most Canadian schools, and your funding pays for tuition plus some stipend? That is, the only cost to the MA is the missed income from working? Given that, I think that if this full time job is the whole point of the MA program in the first place, you should go for the job. Especially if you would be able to get the certification that gives you an edge anyways. Also, what kind of MA program is this? It sounds like a one year mostly coursework MA. Can you get your MA as a part time student taking night classes while working your full time job? To me, I don't think there is direct evidence that your MA will result in career goals being achieved right away, while on the other hand, taking this full time job will definitely get you further towards your career goals now and it will also set you up for better chances in the future. Maybe I'm wrong about your field, but in most places 1 year of actual full time work experience in the field is much more valuable than a one year MA program. However, there could be reasons to do the MA first. If there is actual value of the MA to you other than job opportunities and if you can still get your full time job offer after the MA then maybe it's worth it. In that case, it's a matter of whether or not 1 year + 25,000 is worth the MA. Overall, to me, it sounds like taking the job will give you both the immediate career advancement you're looking for and set you up for long term advancement through the certifications. But the MA will not give you immediate career advancement (and if you don't get a full time job next year then you might be missing out on more than $25,000 in opportunity costs, plus one year of pay raises) and I am not certain how much better the MA will set you up for long term advancement vs. the certification opportunities. Plus, I don't think taking the full time job now means you are saying no to the MA forever. You can save up extra money in case something happens to the job and you can't find another---then that might be a good time to increase your "market value" and go to the MA program. Just my two cents. I'm making some assumptions about how your field works so please disregard/let me know if I'm off track!

Faculty members do know about the visit days a little bit ahead of time and thus they won't schedule new things / one time things, but as rising_star said, there's tons of regularly occurring things that won't be cancelled just because of visit days. For example, classes still need to be taught, weekly meetings with students need to happen and group meeting happens. And, there are often conference calls with collaborators at other schools, these usually cannot be rescheduled. Sure, for each individual professor, these things will only take up 1-2 hours of the day, so they will still have the other 6 hours free for meetings. But each professor is going to have a different 6 hours free, and the students that want to meet with the professor will have a different set of 6 hours free etc. etc. Every year, it almost always gets done and everyone does get to meet with everyone they want, but it's a lot of work.

We have about 30-40 people visiting the department each year. And each visitor meets with 4-6 professors. All in one day! I know how tough it is to get even 5 professors to agree on a time for a committee meeting, so I can't imagine the amount of logistical expertise is necessary to make the visit days go smoothly for the 60-70 or so people involved. One year, they sent out the master schedule (in case a visiting student gets lost then they can literally get help from any current student or faculty member) and that giant spreadsheet with 40 columns was really scary. Made me very grateful for all of the work that goes into making our lives go smoothly.

That's true sometimes. But some schools, like my program, do not do admits in waves. With a few exceptions (e.g. uncommon cases like @rising_star's above), we only send one set of offers and we get who we get. The philosophy is that in the long term, the class sizes average out. This practice is in line with the real world (and academic) job market---when you apply for jobs, if you ever get notified of a negative result, it would likely only happened after the chosen candidate actually starts work. But I think another reason there is a lag is because working with accepted students to arrange visits etc. is a lot of work and consumes a lot of everyone's time (faculty, current students and especially administrative staff). It also consumes a lot of on-campus resources across the campus. It sounds a little mean, but unfortunately, it's in everyone's best interests to focus on the accepted students first and coordinate visits etc. with them. Once that is done, then there's time to send rejections and answer the many emails that undoubtedly will come (maybe you would just accept the rejection, but as you see from other posts on this forum, many people will want to email the programs and find out why exactly they were rejected etc.). Also, it sounds like my program does form rejection via the grad school. If you were accepted, you would get a call from a POI first, then a formal acceptance from the Grad School. But rejections are sent directly from the Grad School. I think what happens is that each program will forward names of accepted students, and then once they have finalized decisions, they tell the Grad School that they are finished. Maybe the Grad School waits until every program does this and then batch sends all the rejections at once. And during this time, they are very busy with both processing incoming students and doing admin work for current students. For example, I submitted all required paperwork for candidacy in February last year and my department approved in a few days, but the Grad School didn't get around to formally approving it until July!

I don't think this is "too late" yet. Everything depends on what is typical for the specific set of schools you applied to, so I'd second fuzzy's suggestion to look at the Results Survey. But if you like sweeping generalizations, I'd say: 1. The longer it is since the typical notification date (see Results Survey), the less likely you will get into that particular school. 2. The more competitive schools tend to make decisions faster than the less competitive schools. So, if you applied to a range of schools, then I would say it's actually quite normal for the typical applicant to get a bunch of rejections first (from the schools that they applied to as "reaches") followed by acceptances from other schools later. But again, these are very broad generalizations and I would really recommend finding out what's typical for the schools you applied to and comparing to that instead.

Oh, I did mean asking for University rates on hotels, but I guess you already have it sorted out! I am not sure if you should ask the University about local attractions (instead, just figure out if you can use your current student status at your own school to get the discounted price). I only brought up the hotels thing because most schools often bring in visitors and so they usually have a good price negotiated with a local hotel. It's up to you whether you want to mention your "fan club". You say you have about a half-day of meetings planned but these visits could go one of two ways: 1) it's completely self scheduled and you basically just set up your own appointments and you come and go as you wish or 2) you might have self-scheduled the dates but when you arrive at 8am, the admin staff is going to hand you a full day schedule with meetings scheduled all day, lunch, and dinner and maybe even an after-dinner social event. This is what I meant earlier by staying in contact with the school / communicating clearly. Both visit types are great, but it would be super awkward if you weren't on the same page as the admin staff! I think if it's the first type, then you don't need to tell them about your SO if you don't want to. You can just do your appointments and then leave. Maybe during the individual meeting themselves, you can bring it up to the people you meet (as in "my SO will be moving with me, and they are currently visiting the town too"). Sometimes good things can come out of this. I've had faculty try to help my SO find work through their in-town connections (my SO isn't an academic). And, if your SO is interested in meeting people from your program, maybe bringing them up (as appropriate) during the faculty or student meetings might get them invited to dinner or a coffee or something. My spouse and I often meet with prospective students with partners because we often share some of the same concerns (e.g. where to find an off-campus place to live [most new students at my school live on campus], how difficult is it for the partner to find work, how to balance work and life etc.) On the other hand, if it's the second type of visit, then you may have a bit of a dilemma. If you tell them about your SO, then they might include your SO in the planning. They will likely be part of any group dinners, and they might even offer your SO a desk to sit at (and do work/check email etc) while you are in meetings, or maybe they will also have other students meet your SO, show them around etc. But if this happens, it's unlikely that they will also want to include your friend as well, so then you are kind of leaving this person out. For my PhD program visits, one school was the second type and it was just my spouse visiting with me, so that worked out well.

I would say to either send an email or a handwritten note, but not both. In my opinion, there's no point emailing to say that a snail mail letter is coming (because, why not just say the thank you right there?). My advice for handwritten thank you notes is to actually bring the note cards and envelopes with you to the visit/interview. At the end of visit, write the notes to the people you want to get them and then mail them while you're still in the University's city before you leave. Or, you could even leave them directly in the faculty members' mailboxes on your last day. That way, they will likely receive them within 1-2 days and you will not have to worry about forgetting to do them when you get home (especially if you are traveling to another school before coming home). I would personally advise against the PDF attachment thank you note. Few things are more annoying, to me, than to have to open an attachment just to read a message (especially if that message could have been in the email body itself). Just write the brief thank you note in the email body so that the busy reader can just see it, feel a brief moment of appreciation that you took time to thank them, and then move on with the rest of their inbox. Of course, you should do what's normal in your field. It sounds like the PDF attachment thing might be normal in Psychology as other students advised @bugabooo to do it this way. It would not be a good idea to do this in my field, mostly because we don't have interviews for grad school positions. But we do interview for post-PhD jobs and the norm is either a nice email or a handwritten card, not a PDF attachment.

I agree with rising_star: the general format should be 1) form a shortlist yourself, 2) discuss the list with your advisor and then 3) talk to each person individually and invite them to your committee. I think it's especially important to meet with professors and tell them about your research while inviting them to be on your committee. You want to show them that they will be a good contribution to your work, not just filling a seat. And if they are very busy, it is unlikely you will get a "yes" if you just asked them without any context or background. Be ready to explain what you are going to do in your dissertation! A lot of people think the committee formation as a chore / just another piece of red tape to get through for the PhD. I'd disagree with this. I think the committee formation process is a really important and useful step because you are forming the "team" that is going to back you up throughout the rest of your degree! The committee is going to be the ones that write letters for you (in addition to your advisor), they're the ones that will let your advisor know if he/she is keeping you too long, they'll be the useful "second opinion" that you might want to seek in the future, and they'll help you expand your network. When I picked my committee, I looked for people that are in junior and senior positions, people that worked with theoretical and observational (experimental) approaches, and people that might ask me hard questions but would improve my work overall.

I second ProfLorax. It's easy to start going down a rabbit hole of what-ifs and politics, but for most cases it's quite simple. And, don't forget, the schools go through this every single year with a whole bunch of people, so you can be sure that you're thinking about the situation a lot more than they are thinking about you. Some rules of thumb: 1. Offers are valid as long as the letter says they are valid (i.e. usually April 15). You should not feel like you need to respond sooner if you are not ready. 2. It's okay to wait to make a decision until you have 100% of the information you need. For example, it is a good idea to wait to decide on School A until you visit School B. You don't have to tell School A anything. They might check in with you every couple of weeks and you can just say that you are waiting until you finish your visits (by X date) before you make your decision. 3. While you should take your time until you get 100% of the information, when you do have enough information to make a certain decision, do it. This probably means you will be making your "decline" decisions earlier than your final acceptance. For example, if by March 1, you have visited 3 schools and you already know one of those 3 is not going to be one of your choices, go ahead and decline them right away. No need to wait until you have accepted an offer before you start declining.

Congrats! I did something very similar when applying to Masters programs in Canada (where we all have to do a Masters first then a 3 year PhD). I had a two week break in February because my school was closed for the 2010 Olympics so I decided to visit some schools I had applied to. One school was a post-acceptance invited visit, one school was a post-acceptance self-scheduled visit (they invited me to visit in March but I asked to visit in February) and one school was a self-scheduled visit before the application deadline, like in your situation. Also, like you, I visited with my SO and a close friend as well (SO was moving with me so it was important for them to see the city and the close friend wanted to go on the trip). I spent 3 days visiting each of the 3 schools, one day meeting with faculty on the campus, one day visiting the city itself and one day for travel between places. For the campus visit day, my SO and our friend would come to campus with me and they would walk around the campus and see the surrounding area while I spoke with faculty members and students. At some places, the faculty invited us (all three of us) to have dinner with them too. The second day was purely for my SO and I to see what the city had to offer and decide if we wanted to live there. We also did fun things like the touristy stuff. I don't really have a lot of advice. I think my visits were a little atypical, but I've found that for my field, in Canada, the visits are very different than the "prospective student days" in the US. For example, it's rare to have a huge group visit at once---most people will visit one at a time and I feel the visits are meant to create a personal connection between the applicant and the group/lab they've been accepted to, while in the US, it seems more like an introduction to the program/department as a whole. I'd advise to stay in contact with each school so that your schedules are lined up. For example if they know when you are available to visit the program itself, they can schedule meetings for you. It would be unfortunate if there was a misunderstanding between your availabilities, such as you were planning to do something touristy at a certain time but the program thought you would be available for meetings. Another good piece of advice is that if they are not paying for the travel costs, ask if the school has any promotional rates for things like hotels etc. and ask if you can use them. And finally, make sure you take the time to evaluate both the academic program / school and also how much you like the city. It's okay to combine a mini vacation with the school visit, but when you are visiting the program itself, be sure to devote your full attention to the school and don't appear as if you are just visiting while on a vacation. Personally, I did this by separating the two visit days as one for purely work and one for purely personal stuff. Do whatever works for you!

For schools that offer both terminal Masters and PhD programs in the same field, I would say it's normal for them to offer Masters program admission to applicants who applied for the PhD program but were not successful. That is, it's normal for them to make PhD program decisions first, and then automatically consider the unsuccessful PhD applicants for their Masters program. Some schools are more explicit in this policy and ask you directly on the application if you would want to be considered, while others just do it anyways.

Maybe. As others said, it could mean anything. It could be that no decisions have been made yet. Or, they have made the first set of acceptances and rejections but you are still a "maybe". Or, it could mean you will get a rejection letter in a few weeks. For example, my program makes almost all of its admission decisions in mid-January. However, we do not inform the people we decline until late February. So, I think at this point, for my program, if you have not yet heard anything, it's almost certainly a rejection. But on the other hand, another program in my field was just starting to give interview invites when all the other programs I applied to were sending out rejections. So, other than using the "Results Search" to see when results are typically announced for your programs, there's really not much information to be gained from hearing no response at this time.

Sorry, I don't know the other websites you can go instead. Maybe you can find some with Google. But also see the note below. To me, it sounds like you need some help getting used to academic writing. Don't worry, everyone has to learn! Paraphrasing means that you read the original text then you have to interpret it and understand it, and then you write it back in your own words. You should not be using the same words as in the original text. You need to find another way to say the same thing. I think you can really benefit from direct one-on-one coaching and tutoring. Here are some potential places you can go to find help on your campus: 1. Does your school have a writing center? Most schools have something like this for their students. I think it would be a really good idea for you to make an appointment to see a writing tutor and learn some basic strategies for academic writing. 2. Does your school have a tutoring service. Sometimes, it's a free service and you can get writing help from senior English students. 3. Is this for a course? Does it have a TA? Maybe the TA can help you. However, you say this is a psychology paper so if this is a course, it might be a psychology course instead of a writing course so maybe your TA might not be able to help with just writing. But it doesn't hurt to check.

I don't think it's overly desperate to ask right away---after all, any sensible person would want to know the financial details before making a decision. But if you are worried about it, it's also reasonable to wait until the next business day (Tuesday?)

There's no one single "moment" for me, so I'll just tell a story. When I started college, I didn't think I wanted to go to grad school. I didn't know what grad school was and I thought research was something I could never do. In my sophomore year, I saw a senior talk about her undergrad thesis and thought that was really cool. I tried to get research work that summer but was not successful. In my junior year, I joined the school's co-op program to get work experience and one of my profs that fall asked if I wanted to work on research with him that summer. I tried it and it was really great---I continued the co-op program and did 16 months of only research and then finished my undergrad degree. At this time, I knew I liked research and my undergrad advisor explained how grad school worked (e.g. you get paid!) and how to apply etc. I started in a 2-year Masters program and when it was time to choose whether or not to apply to PhD programs, I thought about all the factors and decided to go for it. The main factors that led me to a PhD program were: 1) the work I am really passionate about would require a PhD and also 2) even if I don't end up in the career path I am aiming for, a PhD will still help me find other careers that would make me happy. So, I felt like it was the right risk to take and that I would be unhappy with myself if I didn't try! But leading up to that decision was all the years of good mentorship from faculty members that took the time (and sometimes the risk) to mentor me and show me how academia worked.

Did you get the formal official acceptance letter (usually from the Graduate School/University, not the department) or an less formal message from a faculty member or the department chair? Usually the funding information is in the former, but not always in the latter (although in my experience, the latter says to expect funding details to come!) If you are not expecting any further communication about your offer, then it's perfectly fine to ask about it. Everyone will understand that funding is an important part of the decision. You can write back to say something like you are excited for this opportunity and that you were wondering if any funding has been decided yet / is available and that if it will be available, when would you know about it etc.

I just want to say two things: 1. This sounds a bit like a homework question, and TheGradCafe isn't really a good place to get good answers to questions like this. You can easily find APA guidelines on what to do when you want to cite the same source multiple times in a paragraph by googling that phrase. Here is one example I found: http://waldenwritingcenter.blogspot.com/2011/07/citing-author-throughout-paragraph.html 2. I must admit that it's been almost a decade since I last used APA, but regardless of style, I think it's a bad idea in general to directly quote two entire sentences from the source. I remember learning that effective writing means you read what the source said, distill what you need in your argument, and then paraphrase and cite appropriately in constructing your argument. I think direct quoting is important when you want to dissect/analyze the exact way the author chose to write their words, but if you want to just use their ideas, you should be paraphrasing (like in the linked example above). In your subsequent posts, by the way, you are still quoting directly without quotation marks, not paraphrasing.