TakeruK

I agree with the above. You should always explore other options just in case as long as you are not 100% sure about a school (and I would only count 100% sure once you have a final written offer in hand, and that you have already signed and agreed to accept said offer). Until then, nothing is certain so I'd consider it due diligence to continue exploring other options.

I think it's too formal for an email, but it's better than being too informal! I like GradSecretary's suggestion of "Hello" and that's what I usually use when I email a complete stranger.

I also think you're overthinking it and overanalyzing every sentence! It's a perfectly normal and regular encounter in which you ask someone to be on your committee and they agreed.

I think it definitely depends on each job and the relationship you have (or any contract you have) with your employers whether or not you give more than 2 weeks notice. I think unless there is something exceptionally good about the company or your manager and/or you have some vested interest in how the company fares after you leave, there's no point giving more than minimal notice. My philosophy is that you don't "owe" them more than the standard 2 week notice just because the bosses were decent human beings that didn't mistreat you. So, in this case below: I would actually wait until the very last minute (2 weeks notice or whatever your contract is). Being fired on the spot on April 1 will suck and you will lose on months of income. And, in general, if they know you are leaving in 6 months (or whatever the number will be), it means you are almost guaranteed not to get a raise or any increase in benefits. This is also unfair, so that's why I would also advocate for waiting as late as possible. You lose almost all your bargaining and (limited) employee powers when they know you are leaving soon.

Moderator note: Two threads on the same topic by the same person were merged together at this point.

I don't think it matters if it's an interview or not. You should act the same! Professionalism and good first impressions are always important in academia!

I think this is a very important question, but not "the most important". But I don't even know what "the most important" would be....I don't like absolutes/superlatives because it depends so much on each situation! However, I want to say that I came into grad school applications thinking something similar, that I would ask every school for a complete record of their student placement. But none of the schools kept these records. Maybe it's just a difference in field, but I did originally think the first school was being shady by not being able to answer this question until I talked to more and more and none of them knew. Now that I've been in my school a few more years, I understand it a bit better now. It's really hard to keep this information (and to maintain student privacy and confidentiality). It is especially hard because you don't want to just know where they went immediately after graduation (most students would have the next thing lined up so this can be a simple thing to track at graduation). But you want to know where they are 4-6 years past graduation. But people lose touch over this time span. Also, the data is sensitive. I don't think a school should tell other people where their students went unless their students gave them permission to do so. At least not on like a formal report of student post-graduation plans (of course, an advisor might know where their own students are and might tell you informally). So, the school needs a way to keep in touch with its graduates and survey them and ask them for permission etc. There's the problem of small numbers. My program graduates 3-4 students per year. I don't think this is enough to really look for trends, since the ability of students to find work would also depend on how the economy is doing, how much the government is funding basic science etc. And, what specific interests did each student have! Maybe 50% of the graduates here want to go into academia, and when there's 4 graduates per year, that's 2 per year. If you see a few years with 3 into academia (or 1 into academia), you don't know if the change is due to program's strengths or interests changing or just random. One thing that is more useful at my school is the Exit Survey that all graduates (across campus) complete. They ask direct questions like do you have an offer, how much are you being paid, and where. Working with the school, I've seen the data and I know which places hire most of our graduates. But, this is confidential information--we asked the school to publish it to help prospective students decide but they are afraid of compromising the graduates' anonymity. Some companies might not like it that we say they hire our graduates. The data was collected on the promise of anonymity for internal institute use. We're hoping that some more aggregated data can still be released (for example, average post-graduation salary by department or something).

Definitely a good idea!

I feel like this is a really hard question to answer since it's so vague! But here are some thoughts. Briefly, the answer is YES! 1. About 5% of the science PhD students in my school are parents. I think the number at my school is actually lower than the national average, but I don't have the numbers right now to back it up. 2. The parents I know are mostly doing well. My school has decent support structure for parents. The biggest problems seem to be financial rather than advisor support (however, it may be a observational bias in that the students without good advisor support might feel pressure to delay children further). 3. I do know there are students that do want to have children now but they cannot because of the cost of childcare. 4. I made childcare a priority for me when visiting schools. I asked the current students about the support available. Asking around helps---students I met with first did not know but they connected me to students who did have children. I chose my school in part because of its support for parents---leave policies better than minimums, benefits to help pay for childcare (up to $4000 per year) and preferential housing with subsidized rents. I did this asking around "quietly" because when I don't know the climate, I don't want to put myself in a bad way.

Well, in this case, I think the fault is on the department for letting the student know about the actual arrangements so late in the game. (Also, I think there are some schools that will pay for the whole room, but I agree that you should first start by asking if they would pay for the cost of sharing).

I think about it the same way as looking for another job when you already have one. I would just take as much sick/personal/vacation time off as necessary. I would only tell the employer when I am certain of where I am going (i.e. accepted the school's offer) and when I feel the time is right. Some places you just want to give 2 weeks notice and leave. Others you might do a few months. I think this is analogous to how the real world works. My spouse interviewed for months to find a better job and they only finally told their employer when they had a start date for the new job. This is why almost all job searches ask you before contacting your current employer as a reference! And I believe it applies in academia too---faculty will sometimes look for jobs and they would only tell their current department once they accept the other offer, or if they are trying to renegotiate their own contract, then they would try to get a better offer from their own school when they get the other school's offer. Overall, I wouldn't think of it as a dirty little secret. This is just how the world works.

Yes, it's very common, but I think it's unusual for him to only find out about the sharing situation the night before! In all cases, I was told the lodging arrangements from the start. As I wrote about in other places, I also feel very uncomfortable sharing a room with a stranger and in every school I visit, I was able to avoid this. But since they told me weeks before, we had plenty of time to make other arrangements that would work out. It should not reflect poorly on him to ask for a single room, but you never know what people will think. I don't know for sure what I would do in his shoes, since although I would be very uncomfortable, I'm not the type of person that would make a fuss at the last minute. But if he wanted to see what his options were, I would advise him to email the department back and explain that he is not comfortable with sharing a room and would be happy to book and pay for his own room. Maybe the school can still get him the discounted rate.

I second the recommendation to always start with small talk. It's much easier to transition from small talk to research than the reverse, so if you start with research, you might not get to know the personal side of the faculty member (and they won't know about you!). A good small talk topic to start is to ask them about the restaurant and what they like there (assuming they picked the place because they liked it!) Letting the professor take the lead is a good idea---they'll eventually switch it over to the research. That said, also be prepared for the fact that the faculty member might actually be a terrible conversation partner and might be more awkward than you are. Maybe some fields have professors that are just better at talking to people, but I think it helps to be prepared to take the lead in the conversation just in case. Usually, if a faculty member is selected to do an interview, then they are probably good at it, but remember that academics aren't trained for this stuff and it can be really terrible! Tips with the food that might be obvious: - I generally wait to see what the faculty member would order first, then try to order something that is in the same range. e.g. if they get a $12 sandwich, I wouldn't go for the $20 entree. Of course, if you need to meet dietary needs, then do what you have to do. - Take small bites so that if you are asked a question while chewing, you can finish your bite and answer within 5 seconds or so. - Other foods to avoid ordering: pasta dishes with lots of sauce (I get sauce everywhere) or something that will take much longer to cook than what the faculty is ordering, - Unless there is something really wrong with your food, I wouldn't send anything back to the kitchen

If you are 100% sure that you are no longer interested in a school, then withdraw your application as soon as possible. Sure, it's nice to know that you would have been accepted etc. but you should realise the cost to other people just to satisfy your curiosity / make yourself feel better. It is a lot more professional and responsible to withdraw yourself when you are no longer interested in the offer. But I agree that if you still might be interested, then wait and see.

Honestly, I think you made a mistake. You should not have deferred admissions and also applied to other programs. Of course, I don't know the details of the deferment policy at this school, so maybe it's fine, but usually deferring means committing yourself to this program. It sounds like this school is about to make offers to the next cohort and they want to know if they need to save you a spot. You have not heard back from other schools because generally, schools need to figure out their deferred students decisions first so in general, I think this process happens before most of the admission decisions. I think you have two ethical choices at this point: 1. Be honest with the school and tell them that you have also applied to other programs. Maybe the program is big enough that +/- 1 spot is not a big deal, so they can give you a few more weeks to decide. Or, maybe they did not expect that accepting the deferment last year means you are committed to them so this is not a problem at all. This could also backfire though, and they might decide that you were dishonest or did not keep within the deferment policy and rescind your admission. Or, maybe they will allow it but it means you will be re-evaluated amongst all the new applicants. 2. Tell the school that you will be attending this fall. Then, withdraw all of your other applications. You asked if telling the school that you're interested and then taking another offer would be really bad. Yes, this would be extremely bad. In addition to being very unethical, this will burn all your bridges at that program, and although I don't know what field you're in, some fields are really small. Also, if the other schools you've applied to know about what you did, it would probably hurt you there too. Don't do this. In my opinion, you cannot ethically use the current offer you have as a backup plan while you pursue other offers. You either take it, or you risk it for the other applications. It's not right to fake interest in one school only because it's a backup to others. (Note: It's perfectly fine though, to have interest in one school as a "safety school" but at least be honest about it).

Usually, for science and engineering fields, all PhDs are awarded a funding package that pays for the cost of tuition and provides a salary. Some schools award it as a tuition waiver, some as a fellowship, and some just pays you a big amount and then charge you tuition afterwards. From the point of view of a professor, depending on how the school is set up, they don't often think about tuition, so that might be the reason why it was not mentioned. To them, usually the important part is whether or not they will pay for you with their grant (research assistantship) or if you will have to do a lot of TA work to get paid. RA is preferable usually for the student! The official offer letter should say the tuition waiver specifically though. If you need to know sooner, you can ask the professor about tuition waiver.

I think you should be honest. As you said, if you keep it too vague, the followup questions could be awkward and make you look bad for evading the question. But honesty won't hurt you here. Of course, no need to share extra information. For example, you would not say that you applied 7 better programs and didn't get any interviews!! If they ask you "Are you interviewing anywhere else?", just say "No, this is my only interview!" or whatever variant suits you best. Then, you should follow up with some statement about how you are excited for this chance or that you're interested in this program. For a safety school, I think it is fine that you don't have other interviews. One of the big concerns of a safety school is determining whether the candidate is really interested in their program or if they are just going through the motions of applying/interviewing because this is a safety school and they already have offers elsewhere they are considering more strongly. Again, no need to emphasize how you don't have offers. Instead, just focus on this program and how you look forward to the opportunity etc.

I have received similar emails from places I applied without any correlation to the final decision.

I agree with everyone else---attend School A as scheduled and visit School B another time. I don't think an alternate weekend is going to be that bad, after all, it's the designated alternate weekend so it's likely a bunch of others will be visiting then too. And the department (faculty, staff, students etc.) will be prepared for the visit!

This is tough because I don't want to give you advice that will lead to a "self-fulfilling prophecy" so to speak. That is, if you are constantly looking for the bad, you could end up overemphasizing and misinterpreting / experience confirmation bias too. I think a good balance to be smartly critical is to set your criteria before visiting. I think making decisions like which schools is an important part of an academic's responsibility (after all, we will eventually be grading students, reviewing proposals, refereeing papers, making admission decisions, making hiring decisions etc.). My philosophy is to always lay out what I'm looking for (whether it's a school, a homework set, a candidate for a job) before reviewing the files. It helps to reduce the effects of confirmation bias that you are mentioning here. Another piece of advice is that when you hear something bad about something (whether it's at this "perfect" school or not), take it seriously. The most common thing I've seen when current students try to warn new students away from a particular professor, experiment, etc. is the new student thinks "Oh but I'll be different, it won't happen to me!" I said the same thing and it happened to me. Other people on this forum have said the same thing and it happened to them. Many other students at my school across all disciplines have told me similar stories. Of course, there is still a chance that X won't happen to you, but I think most of us think we're somehow special and have an extra good chance of avoiding X. Now, that said, maybe X isn't that bad---it's not necessary unrecoverable (after all, the bad thing that happened to me didn't really affect me that much in the long run). This is where I think having your criteria of what's important to you prior to visiting and learning all of these things is important. After you learn all of the ups and downs of each school, you can judge them fairly on the factors important to you. Note: I do think that you could and should update your criteria as you learn new things (maybe you haven't thought of a certain factor before). Sometimes, for things like grading, you shouldn't do this, but for deciding on schools I think it's okay. But I still think it's important to try your best to really lay out all of the key factors to you ahead of time. For me, I am a person that likes to focus on the good and forget the bad, so doing this exercise helps me ensure that I don't gloss over the bad stuff that could hurt me later.

I believe you are understanding it correctly. You should check with the faculty and current students if you are not sure. One thing you could ask directly is that it says the value of waived tuition is $15,058 in your first year, but can this tuition waiver also be used towards fees? It does not sound like it though. Unfortunately, some schools just give really bad stipend offers because they have very limited funding for students. At some programs, fees are included in your stipend package---for example, my funding offer includes all fees paid as well as tuition. However, I do pay out of pocket for health insurance, but my health plan is worth $2700/year and I pay $450/year for it. You should also consider your own health needs and compare insurance plans between schools! But before I would dismiss this as a stipend too low to be worth considering, I would check three things: 1. What is the cost of living at University of Oklahoma like? I know nothing about the costs there, but if you can live up to your standards with this stipend, then it might make sense. 2. Is this the only stipend source you can have? For example, is there a chance to earn more as an RA in the future? Or to win a fellowship (hard to do as an international student though). Also, is this the 9-month stipend (as TA work isn't done in the summer typically) and would you get a different RA stipend on top of this stipend for the summer months? Usually this would be explicit in the letter but you should still check. 3. Even if the low stipend is enough to live on, you should find out if the low stipend is a sign of lack of funding in general at this department. What are your resources for other things you might want money for in the future (e.g. does the school or department offer a travel fund?). And you should talk to your potential advisors to find out what kind of funding sources they have to pay for your research and related costs (e.g. page charges, conference travel, computer/other equipment etc.) I think these are important things to find out. I also think it's okay to decline an offer solely because the stipend is too low to live on.

I feel like if they are not asking explicitly then you don't have to answer that you have an offer, like @rising_star says. But I have not encountered programs that ask it this obliquely. Maybe it's just the programs I've encountered, but either the schools care about whether or not I have an offer elsewhere and they just ask me outright or they don't care and they don't ask at all.

If you are asked, then I don't see any reason to lie about it or to not tell them. But if you are not asked, then you shouldn't say anything. Not because it will be used against you or anything, but if they don't ask, it means they are not interested, and telling the school about your other offers for no reason is a little weird.

Thanks!! I'm bookmarking this for my next weekly meal/grocery planning session! We usually used canned beans as a protein replacement for meat but they get too mushy when cooked for too long. However, in writing this sentence, I realised that maybe I should be using dried beans in a slow cooker instead! This is exciting....maybe there is a whole new set of meal choices in the future Thanks!

You only get credit for the question if you get all the blanks correct. There is no partial credit. For more information about the test questions, it's best to go right to the source! https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/verbal_reasoning/ Click on each of the 3 question types for the official information on how the questions are constructed, what they are looking for and how they will be scored.