Cookie

I'm in this process right now: asking my top choice to offer additional support to match with fellowship offers from other schools.
I found that it is best to ask during the visits. By preparing myself well for interviews, asking good questions and having good science talks with POIs, they have a better idea of me as a prospective student. Therefore, the negotiation became less contrived. I talked to the dept chairs as well as my favorite POIs about my existing offers, being as forthcoming and respectful as I could. After the visits, I followed up by emails. But the first face to face conversations seemed to have the most impact. It is interesting to see that some POIs/ departments like you enough to not only match other offers, but also bend over backwards to help you with other aspects of starting grad school (relocation, finding job for your spouse).
The results so far is one additional first year fellowship (departmental), one schoolwide full fellowship nomination, and one early bird fellowship (to start grad school early with stipend). The lesson learnt is that you should ask. This is the only time you can negotiate. If they are not interested in helping you now, wouldn't it say something about how much they value you as a potential student?

You said horrible things about her and now she gave you the  A you wanted, then everything is fine again?
 
 
Yeah, I hope you learned something: to not jump to conclusion whenever things dont go your way...
Professors dont have to give you good grades. You either earn it or you dont, nothing has to do with how much work you do for them or how friendly they are to you. That is what I mean.

If you get bumped up, it would be this month (a friend of mine mid June a few years ago)

Your accusations are absolutely ridiculous:
1. The project ideas came up in your discussions with him, so they weren't totally yours. So it is not stealing. Also, you couldn't do it right so why are you blaming him?
2. Maybe after completing the first experiment, the result led to an obvious/uninteresting answer to the second problem. PEOPLE CAN CHANGE THEIR MINDS, TOO. I don't think he can stop you from performing the second one if you want to.
PS: Sorry if it seems like I'm yelling, but you sound like some brats I have to deal with in my own lab
 

Regardless of what your advisor meant in that email, those scores are way too low. You cant trust the Kaplan practice test scores. In my experience, the actual test is harder. 

Hi,
If my research proposal contains animal studies, is there a separate document that I have to fill out or do I only do that if I am awarded? Or are we not allowed at all to included animal studies in our proposal?
 
Thanks!!
 

Hi!
I'm having issues that are severely threatening my chances of graduating this fall. I'm a visiting MSc thesis student from Europe working in an US lab, and am being mentored by a PhD student (well, he recently defended but anyway). My research is a derivative/continuation of his.
My problem is, he has now twice executed experiments that we'd discussed and decided to include in my thesis. The first one, at least, was relevant to his PhD and included in his dissertation. I didn't get the technique right, and he did it before I could. But him doing it meant my first research aim was redundant, so I moved to the second one, for which there were two experiments planned.
And when I went to him to discuss some things he needs to train me on to do it...he told me he's done the first of the two experiments....which, in this case, DOES NOT fit within his thesis, and was not included in his dissertation. When I suggested I then move on to the next experiment in that line of research, he told me he thought the question wasn't interesting. If it wasn't interesting, why did he do it, then? Especially considering the hypothesis has been validated, which was the desirable outcome.
At this point, I have absolutely no data because my first aim was rendered redundant by the guy who supposedly is mentoring me, and he dismissed the second one now that he's done it himself, even though he didn't think it was 'uninteresting' when we first planned out my research proposal. These are ideas we came up with while discussing, so I cannot call them 100% mine, but they WERE explicitly meant to be part of my research, not his. The PI doesn't seem to have any issue with it.
I have been asked to come up with an ENTIRELY NEW research plan now (my report is due in 10 weeks! this is ridiculous). So I have - multiple ideas, even, but my mentor didn't think any of them were interesting/feasible in my remaining time. 
Now, what I'm wondering, is whether or not I should discuss ideas with the PI directly before involving my mentor. I know it's borderline paranoid reasoning, but I cannot see any reason he would investigate research questions that a) I was meant to do myself and b ) suddenly deem them uninteresting once he's done with them, OTHER than just stealing from my project?
If I can get my idea(s) approved by the PI before my mentor hears about them, then I have a chance of actually getting my own data for my ideas, which is all I need....I don't even need a huge amount of data, because if my literature review, discussion, and future perspectives sections are solid, I should have a decent chance of getting my thesis approved.
Any advice welcome! I'm in a very tough spot and have very limited time. If working 15hrs a day could solve the problem I'd do it, but I'm not even being given the OK to start experimenting because of this!

I am on a Mac and planning to use Praat. When I downloaded a couple new .m4a files, Praat wouldn't open them. It gives me a pop-up that says, "File not recognized. File not finished" Any thoughts pls?

The inventory I used is like the following diagram (names are obviously made up):
Scale 
Subscale food (contains sub-subscales fruits, veggies, and meat)
Subscale drink (contains sub-subscales juice and alcohol)
 
Basically, the sub-subscales contain the actual items/questions that were administered, the sub-subscales are grouped into subscales, which make up the total scale.
My question is, I know how to calculate the reliability of the sub-subscales in SPSS, but I don't know if for calculating the reliability of the subscales, should I
1) Include only the sub-subscales as items (e.g., fruits, veggies and meat for the subscale food)
2) Include all the items that measure the sub-subscales (e.g., items that measure fruit, items that measure veggies plus items that measure meat)
I was also wondering the same thing about the reliability for the entire scale, do I include just the subscales or the actual items that measure all sub-subscales?
 
Please don't hesitate to ask me to clarify anything. Thank you in advance for your help!

Another update: joined the lab!!! 

Is anyone else as sad as I am? I know other more deserving people won and I'm happy for them, but still very sad. I've never really won or been recognized for anything, and winning this would have been the solution to my financial problems (my TA stipend is not something I can live on) and a solution to how much I dislike teaching. 
Most of my comments were about how I haven't published enough to be competitive with other 2nd year grad students. I've done what I can with the resources available to me in my program, but I can't compete with people at wealthy universities on research grants. 

Yes you aren't the only one. But I think it is natural, after spending a lot of time on something that could improve your career and really change your academic life for the better, anticipating for months and then not getting it? You are allowed to mourn for a bit. But don't be discouraged! Use it as motivation to plan and work that much harder at your research!

Good luck to all the applicants this year!  And for those about to win the prize, remember that it's not about whether you win the award or not, it's about what you do once you do win the award.  The GRFP won't help you get through those times when your project seems impossible and you feel like an idiot, and nobody will care that you have the GRFP if you don't develop your scientific intuition in grad school.  It's not even the most prestigious grad school fellowship/the application wasn't actually THAT much work.  Enjoy it though, and welcome to the club! 
 
P.S.  There isn't actually a club.  You will get access to supercomputers though.  
 

If you could spend an hour reading the previous NSF-GRFP threads, you would see 99% of the questions, including yours, already answered.

PDF files only. Convert them on your end.
But, as fuzzy said, bad formatting is unlikely to get you automatically rejected.

And you are applying for CS programs? That would be a horrible mistake to make...

HI,
I would try to add some more "safety schools". The safety schools you posted are really competitive, and you might end up struggling to get there. If you can present your GRE again... DO IT!!! That would increase your chances of getting  accepted everywhere (your GRE scores aren't the best)

With those GRE scores, I wouldn't consider your "safety schools" as that safe. For example, you'd be in the lowest quartile for all of your GRE scores, and in the middle quartiles for your GPA.

This happens in many fields, in both Canada and the US and also in the sciences. Every time I have won an outside fellowship, my internal sources get decreased. This is fair though, in my mind, because the internal money is not meant to be stacked with outside sources and I think it's acceptable for an internal fellowship to come with the condition that "the student may only receive this without outside funding" or something like that.
However, in every case, the student with the outside money will earn as much if not more than the original package. Many schools in the sciences (at least in Canada) will have different funding levels based on amount of outside money. For example, my MSc program pays $24,000/year for no scholarship, $27,000/year for a provincial level scholarship and $30,000/year for a national fellowship (+$5,000 one time signing bonus). I came to my MSc program with a national fellowship and also won a University-wide fellowship valued at $10,000, but that did not stack--my department sourced funding got decreased by $10,000. 
At my current US program, in my first 3 years I brought in a fellowship worth $20,000/year and our stipend is $30,000/year. I didn't get any top-up, my school just pays me the difference (and also my tuition). Now, I have a different fellowship that is $24,000/year and the deal is the same--I get paid the difference between the stipend rate and what my fellowship brings in. There are a few students that have fellowships valued above the stipend rate and only in those cases do the students get to make more money.

@Amelu that's fine, just note that a PhD might make it harder to teach at "earlier years", but what is more grave, if I may speak bluntly, is that people who go into graduate school mostly for the "love of it" and "wanting to master it" are typically the types of students who take 10 years to finish their PhD, or even more likely, drop out. The one's who finish are the ones who want a job that love what they do AND what they love to do requires a PhD. They want to rule the world, so to speak. Its why so many academics are narcissistic.  

I think a lot of this depends on why you are getting a PhD: are you going after academic jobs after? If that's the case, you are probably better off not getting a PhD if you do not get fully funded. If you are already behind the 8 ball on funding when your a PhD student... how are you going to outperform people for jobs who have already been awarded full funding? Like it or not there are teirs of grad students, and in this job market (any field) only really the best get academic jobs (and not necessarily the jobs they want). 

Your cousin/relative and family have been... misled. Online PhDs or online degrees in general aren't accredited or considered academically legitimate. When was the last time you saw an article cite "...a study done by the online university-of-some-mythical-bird..." or go to a conference where a professor was from an online university? As you've mentioned the workload and format of online universities is significantly different and much less demanding. 
 
I empathize with you about getting your family to understand how it works. My SO is the first one going to grad school and he has a hard time even explaining why it's something worth doing. I'm also the first in my family to do a PhD and my parents have NO CLUE how the system works. My dad recently asked me "what's "objective" mean?" (They don't speak english very well.)
 
Sometimes you just have to say, "hey, this is the way I'm doing it." and let what they say roll off your back. The may come around to "getting it" or maybe they won't.
 
Chances are, when you get in somewhere good and get a stipend, your family might question this online-uni-going relative and ask "hey, so where's YOUR stipend? So-and-so gets a monthly check for GOING to school. How come you have to get loans?" 
 
I don't think you have to say very much about getting your family to see the difference. Time will show that you've got the "better" deal. 

No. Why would you enter a program that doesn't respect you enough to support you in your work?

I attended the first webinar for GROW/GRIP today and want to share my notes to those who are interested. More information can be found in 'Dear Colleagues' letters for these programs.
 
GROW: research abroad, GROW (traditional) or GROW-USAID (research must related to development of that country) in the list (currently 21 countries, and growing).
 
*Allowance: on top of the NSF-GRFP stipend.
(1) $5000 travel allowance, to and within the host country, and associated supplies, travel insurance, extra baggage, immunization, by NSF.
(2) Additional in-country support from host: extra each month for housing etc (varied by countries, e.g. $1850 per month in Japan).
 
*Status/Eligibility:
Can declare reserve or on tenure during GROW.
If you already use 3 years of tenure, you can still do GROW/GRIP in the 2 extra reserve year as long as you havent graduated.
Can NOT declare reserve/tenure for less than a year.
If awarded NSF GRFP during the first year of grad school, then eligible for GROW in year 2, 3, 4 (Can apply after completing the first year of grad school).
Fellows are encouraged to contact the researchers directly to establish the connections.
One GROW application per year. Cannot proposed research more than a year early. Must propose to do research for that year. Can re-apply for more than one GROW.
 
GRIP: internship at agencies in US.
 
*Allowance: on top of the NSF-GRFP stipend.
$5000 research allowance, additional research support varies.
 
*Status/Eligibility:
Can apply within the first 4 years of grad school.
Must go through points of contact on NSF website to search for opportunities at specific agencies (fellows not encouraged to directly contact researchers).
Maximum 2 GRIP applications per year, but must be to 2 different agencies.
 
Applications for both GROW & GRIP:
The budget justification must include budget for both $5000 and any additional support.
Biological sketch: encourage using standard 2-page NSF formatted template sketch.
Letter of Endorsement not the same as rec letter: what do YOU get out of the experience?
Letter of Collaboration must include how GROW will benefit your host.
The whole application must be in ONE pdf file, in the same order asked.
Can apply and do both GRIP and GROW as long as your advisor approves.
The proposed timeline and any adjustments must be approved by your host, your advisor and your institution (6 months at least from application submission to start date).
You wont be notified if you pass the first round, except for GROW Switzerland.
 
Acceptance rates:
GRIP: 25 slots this year.
GROW: 2013: 52 awards (87%), 2014: 128 (73%)
 
Contact:
GROW+USAID: RIFellowships@usaid.gov
GROW: GROW@nsf.gov 
GRIP: GRIP@nsf.gov
 
   

Undergrad applicants: 3 rec letters from undergrad.
First-year grad applicants: 2 from undergrad (including undergrad advisor), 1 from graduate advisor.
Second-year grad applicants: 1 from undergrad advisor, 2 from grad (including graduate advisor).