text:
Unsolicited CVs from grad school applicants - ignore or try to help?
I am a graduate student in physics and every other month or so I get an e-mail from someone who wants a grad school or even postdoc position. These e-mails often start out "Dear Professor (my name)," (I'm not a professor) and go on to explain that they are a motivated student looking to do a PhD with me, sometimes referring to a position that I am supposed to have advertised (I didn't). In the past I have often sent a reply in which I try to be disinterested but helpful, pointing them to the jobs section on our website which explains clearly who to contact.
I'm asking because today I got another one:

I would be pleased to join for the PhD Studentship position into your institution for (field that has nothing to do with my institution) research.

Oddly specific and inaccurate at the same time. I don't mind just deleting it. However, I'd like to help if I can.

Why do people do this? To me, it seems counterproductive.
How can I help them onto the right track?

Ignore. It's good practice for later.

There's a reason that people suggest that you research the institution and the people at a place that you're applying for, and it's to ensure that you appear genuine when you are asking for employment opportunities. This goes for ANY job, not just academic jobs - I'm sure that many private companies get the same generic Copy-and-Paste letter as well.

IMHO there is a huge difference between getting an e-mail with a few details mistaken*) and getting SPAM. A few times I was addressed "Prof.", once even as an undergraduate student. However, when it is not a (semi-)automatically generated e-mail, I always respond (e.g. some people are afraid when do not know one's title, and write "Prof" just in case). Moreover, openings are not always listed, so asking about them is always a valid question. But in the later case (i.e. of SPAM)...

I usually consider such emails as spam, although it's an oddly targeted type of spam. The only goal I can think of is to confirm the validity of academic email addresses.

We actually got a visiting scholar from Japan through one of these emails in our lab, addressing me as professor (I'm a graduate student), so not all of them are spam.  It seemed real enough, so I forwarded to my advisor.

I think there is some sort of service that does this for people.  I sometimes open them to see if they included a very serious picture at the top of their CV.  Those are the best.

I think we all get these emails and being famous and more senior probably means getting more of them. I am not famous or senior so I get one/two of these a day. I reply to them all. I am not sending man to mars and and can spend 30 seconds to reply to someone who sent an irrelevant one or spend a bit of time helping someone who was genuine and/or had a high calibre and went and studied my work. Naturally the quality of my reply depends on the quality of the email I have received. Thats the least that I can do. I must confess at times it has been a one liner saying "at least do a bit of research and see what I do instead if this generic meaningless email and have attached my boilerplate text explaining why this is not helpful and what they should do" but also sending a three pager, correcting mistakes I have seen in CV, cover letter and/or proposal and calling people I know to help somebody out.
Why do I do this? Yes it takes time and we are all busy but I enjoy the fact that I am in a position to guide someone and help them out in bettering themselves. Many have done this for me before and believe it or not those guys who replied were really helpful. I do the same in hope that it might inspire someone, help him/her succeed and give them the sense that people do care about you and want to have your back. Same way many people are in this community who give their time and help strangers they don't know.
Now answer to the question:
Write a boilerplate text for the ones who send you random stuff. This is not the last time you will get something like this. Explain why this is not going to help and what is the correct way. You only have to do this once and whether they take your advice or not is their choice...
In future if you become an academic please do try to help people and don't see their efforts as SPAM if you feel they are genuine and have tried. Also give the benefit of the doubt to the ones who send random emails. They might just be desperate and need some help. Preparing some text to explain the above might actually help someone. It might be that he/she has got bad advice about how to go about finding positions etc.

+1 for Same way many people are in this community who give their time and help strangers they don't know. Otherwise we never have this board in the first place.

This was, in my opinion, the best advice. I ended up doing this, though I didn't spend any time correcting the CV.

What you describe is a form of academic spam. As any spam, people do it because:

the cost appears low
you can do it in bulk
the success rate is indeed horribly low, but if the number of emails sent is large, the product of (success rate) x (number of emails) can be non-negligible.

While the above analysis is probably true if you're selling sildenafil citrate, I think it does not hold in academia, because hiring decisions are typically a well-controlled process, and not an “on the spot” decision by a single person in power.
My policy regarding such emails is: my time is precious (in fact, it is most probably the main limiting factor in my scientific productivity). So, if there is at least one blatantly untrue or gross discrepancy in the email I receive, I do not reply. (That can include: getting my affiliation wrong, getting the research field wrong, referring to a position I didn't advertise, etc.)

Added for clarification: getting the title wrong does not, in my own system of value, consider a “blatant error”. Obviously, emailing a graduate student with “professor X” is weird, but you have to consider that honorifics, titles, etc. depend on country/research system. Thus, many people use “professor” when they refer to permanent staff, when they are not sure if the actual title is “Dr.” or “prof.” or whatever… It is, in my view, a really minor issue.

I see a fair number of these letters as well. Some see more genuine than others but as you state some do not even hit the main subject in which my department work. I see these as desperate attempts to get a foothold somewhere. In some cases, and I must emphasize that I cannot support his with hard proof, it seems having some form of official documentation may provide enough basis for persons to get the necessary background for visas and hence possibility to travel.
I am sure there are all kinds of reasons for these mails ranging from the perfectly honest, however misdirected, to the pure opportunist with alternative motives. The true tragedy is that the genuine contacts may become rejected because of the sheer number of mails.
I would recommend that each department/graduate school set up some form of standard reply, perhaps pointing at a web page stating how to apply. In our case PhD positions are offically advertised so contacting the department (me) is of no use.


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Which survey software to use?
I want to create a fairly long survey for my doctoral research. The target audience is teachers in the area. I have the option of using the software my institution provides (Qualtrics), Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, or perhaps something different. I'm leaning toward my university's software because the URL has my university's domain and might seem more trustworthy or legit than SurveyMonkey. Google Forms is pretty slick, though, too.
My one requirement is that I need to be able to branch based on answers.
What are some pros/cons of using one software over the other for academic work? Is it okay to do a survey with software not provided by my institution?
(PS--This is actually on behalf of my wife. :-) )

Google Forms won't allow you to branch; don't know about the others...

There are two different questions here. The survey software question is probably better suited for Software Recs.SE; the issue of how being in academia affects or constrains your choice definitely is relevant here.

@jakebeal: Google Forms does allow branching. See https://support.google.com/docs/answer/141062?hl=en

@jvriesem Hey, you're right!  I never figured out that functionality before. Thank you!

I don't think that survey URL's domain plays a significant role in trustworthiness of a doctoral survey request. What is far more important IMHO are the contents and writing style of the invitation letter as well as having solid professional or academic online profiles (as most likely most people will be looking you up anyway).
In regard to the software  selection aspect, my advice is to check the following resources: this Wikipedia page, this Quora wiki page and this Quora thread. Just keep in mind that some answers are posted by people, affiliated with firms - creators of some survey software. Finally, I would like to emphasize that, when selecting survey software, it is important to consider its features and format flexibility in exporting the results for further data analysis (I assume such analysis is planned).

A google form would certainly not come across as professional. It doesn't have to be a university address, but it should be trustworthy.

I would go with Qualtrics, for the reasons you cite.
However, make sure that when you pull the data out you export the questions all the possible ways, especially the .qsf version. Otherwise, when you leave the institution, you'll have lost the survey (because you can't log in to get it). This is especially important if you, or anyone else, wants to use the survey again.
Since my institution uses surveymonkey, and I find the idea of asking people to go to a monkey site abhorrent, I will probably install Limesurvey, but my proclivity to do things myself the hardest way possible is a personal problem.

  Is it okay to do a survey with software not provided by my institution?

This in itself should be OK. But if you put you survey somewhere online on your own make sure you carefully read the terms of use of that service and think hsard what rights to the survey data you're signing over to the form provider.
And double-check that this is OK with all the data privacy and ethics stuff the study needs to comply with.
I haven't used it but heard of REDCap in a lecture and got the impression that those developers put a lot of emphasis on getting the privacy and ethics issues right.

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Equal contribution for second and third authors
We are six co-authors in an applied CS paper (AI). This paper has a "strong" first author who worked on this project for years. Two student authors (let's call them Alice and Bob) contributed to the paper, and the other co-authors are seniors.
Since Alice and Bob have roughly the same contribution, we use a lexicographic tiebreaker, and placed Alice before Bob. While Alice is (unsurprisingly) happy with this solution, it bothers Bob.
I thought of several solutions:

We stay with the lexicographic tiebreaker between Alice and Bob.
Flip a coin to determine the order.
Put an asterisk suggesting equal contribution to the second and third authors.
Other creative solutions?

My question is about option 3. I've yet to encounter an "equal contribution" remark that is not about the first author. Since there is a sole first author, is it reasonable to remark that the second and third have equal contribution? Any other thoughts?

Can you put in something like an acknowledgement section: contributions. Try to write something that pleases all or displeases few.

Why not just switch Alice and Bob? If Alice doesn't care, but Bob does, why not place him before Alice?

@Buffy I guess this is even more cumbersome.

@user111388 Alice does care, edited.

@CJR Thanks for the feedback. Can you add a link to demonstrate how it's done?

I hate to suggest the sensible solution generally used in theoretical CS and in pure mathematics. Strict alphabetical listing. Or dueling pistols on the village green at dawn. That used to be the way.

My prof told about his advisor's special method: He would give Bob a stern talking to (or Alice, it doesn't matter) that this is bad behaviour and if it continues, he wouldn't be so sure if he let Bob graduate. this usually kept the students quiet. But I don't recommend it anymore as Buffy recommends the Pistol duel;)

@omerbp In my field (computer vision), it's absolutely normal to indicate that several authors other than the first have made an equal contribution. You just put a * next to their names and add a footnote. For example: http://openaccess.thecvf.com/content_cvpr_2017/papers/Cavallari_On-The-Fly_Adaptation_of_CVPR_2017_paper.pdf

@CJR It's not always done because people were fighting over it either, for what it's worth - it's considered normal to do it just to reflect the actual contributions people made, rather than because anyone was actually annoyed/complaining about it.

My advice would be that Alice and Bob go back to doing something useful.  The additional value of being second author instead of third is minuscule.

@AnonymousPhysicist I'm not sure I would direct all of my fire at Alice and Bob in this scenario to be honest. It hardly seems fair to (i) set up an incentive structure that focuses on silly things like author order, (ii) penalise the careers of people who ignore that, and (iii) blame people who take it into account. In an ideal world, researchers would focus only on the topic at hand and not on credit - but senior academics have a part to play in setting up the incentive structure to encourage that. People care about nonsense like this only because they're incentivised to care about it.

@Buffy Are there lots of people called Professor Aardvark in theoretical CS and pure maths by any chance? :)

@StuartGolodetz, no, I think I'm the only one.

To answer your question nr. 4 ("Other creative solutions?"):
Making explicit each contributor's role based on CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) may solve some issues.
Many publishers already support the integration of such formalized contributor statements.

Option3 is fine.
Take a look at https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.04088.pdf

Hi and welcome to Academia SE. Could you please expand on your answer? Something done in an arXiv submission may not be accepted in a regular submission or not so universally recognized.

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Jumping from an ABA to an MBA?
So, when I did my undergrad degrees in computer science (BA) and creative writing (BFA), I spent the whole time thinking "I'm going to be going into industry. I should take business classes." But since I was doing 188+ credits in nine semesters I didn't have a ton of spare time, and I didn't.
Now, after 5+ years of being in the industry (I'm a software engineer), I've had the conclusion that in fact yes, I should have taken business classes.
So that's what I'm doing. Through the local community college, I've got about ten courses to go until I qualify for an associates in business administration. Now, in a few semesters I'll be the somewhat contemptuous owner of an ASBA.
My question is this: with two baccalaureate degrees in unrelated fields and an associates' in business, would I be able to jump right to an MBA program and expect to do well?

That's an odd conclusion to come to. I double majored in business and comp sci in undergrad and never felt like my business classes mattered (Account 1&2, Mgt, Finance, Fed Tax, Marketing, Intl Business). Have you tried applying to a different software shop?

I'll add that many masters programs have introductory courses that students can skip if they meet the reqs. I'm seeing this more with Computer Science MS degrees, where you don't have to have a Comp Sci undergrad. Without a CS undergrad, they require to you to take 5 additional introductory courses -- at say $3,000+ a course.

I've always found it interesting that MBA is one of the areas IBM will explicitly not reimburse tuition for. (Or at least that was true last time I was looking at those benefits.)

As I understand it, MBA programs require no undergraduate background in business whatsoever, at least in the U.S.  (You typically need an undergraduate degree of some sort, as well as some real-world business experience, but you don't need any specific academic background at all.)  However, I've never attended or taught at such a program, so I'll leave a formal answer to people with more direct expertise.

Definitely, but, as a CS grad, then later, an MBA grad, I do have to say that the MBA degree won't help in the tech world, at all, unless you're looking at management opportunities or starting your own business. Getting a Master's degree part-time does impress most employers, however. Since it sounds as though your enjoy academic challenges, go ahead and give it a try, especially if there's reimbursement for tuition. But frankly, you would just be doing this for your own personal development; there's just not much out there right now for MBA's, unless you go full-time to a national top-20 program.
I've found that a Master's in CS is no better than a Bachelor's, so if you're thinking about a CS part-time Master's degree, while you're working full-time in tech, skip it. I once worked for an medium-to-large tech employer (about 2,500 tech staff) who was dead-set against MSCS grads, even at the same pay, since they were afraid that the MSCS grads would expect faster promotions (and frankly, be much smarter than their boss). So, it seems that, in recent years, one has to step up to the PhD level in CS to get a big career boost.
Anyway, with your ASBA, you will not likely have to complete any prerequisites, which are just UG survey courses in Accounting, BA, Finance, Econ, etc. I'll say that if you have a CS BA, you've got the math chops, also, you have the BFA, so you can communicate well (extremely important in B-School...watch old reruns of the TV show "Paper Chase" to get an idea of the MBA classroom, since it's similar to a law school class), so you will likely do very well. I would caution, though, to try to attend the best program in your area. No one hires or promotes from weak programs, though you can get into a B-School PhD program from one, from what I've heard.

I'm not really looking for an MBA to help me in an employment sense. In my experience, the presence of a software engineer who can also talk to people and sell the product does nothing but unnerve potential employers.  However, I'm getting ready to sell my own product, and I'd like to spin it up into a full software shop of my own. Being in that position, I really need to understand business from the inside to sell my product better.

An MBA can certainly give you perspectives well beyond the typical tech perspective, from fields such as Finance and Marketing. I'm not sure how much real networking goes on in most part-time programs, but given your question, I would say it's definitely worth your time. I did also enjoy your other comment, in that I also have the same experience with managers who simply cannot deal with software professionals who can speak well and have intelligence outside the technical field. That's a good comment in general for those ASE readers who might be interested in a US-based IT career.

However, I'm getting ready to sell my own product, and I'd like to
  spin it up into a full software shop of my own. Being in that
  position, I really need to understand business from the inside to sell
  my product better.

You don't say what country you're in, but in Ireland (and most European countries, I expect), there are free programmes that will teach you everything you need to know to start a business, including accounting, basic tax law, basic employment law, costing and pricing, sales techniques, connecting you to a mentor, etc. Together with your industry experience, that may be all you need. Check with your local enterprise authority/small business council, etc.
I went through such a programme years ago before starting a business. Students received a stipend, and attended day-long classes once or twice a month over the period of a year. I haven't done an MBA, so I can't draw a comparison between what you learn in an MBA and what you learn in a programme such as I went through. But the programme did give me all the preparation I felt I needed.

Well, I frankly expect to receive all the actual tuition I need to successfully run my business from the associates' degree. Jumping to the master's will act primarily as a networking tool once I have the spare money to throw at a master's program. The general idea is that the more I know about businesses and their problems, the more I can build products they will want to buy.

That said, though, the program you were in sounds really cool. Sadly, I'm in the US, so teaching me to have a business is, itself, some kind of business.

@MichaelMcPherson - Check with your chamber of commerce.  A web developer I know took a workshop (this was in NY State) that taught him what he needed to know to run a small business.  Also the chamber of commerce in my town has monthly events for networking, and you could have conversations with people at those events that would help you find out what people's software needs are.  Finally -- you can survey businesses in your area.

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If I know how many questions I attempted/got wrong on GRE Math Subject test, can I estimate my score?
I gave my Mathematics GRE Subject test yesterday ( 170 minutes). I attempted 42 out of 66 questions and feel I could do more if I had some more time. I lost time solving some questions.
Of the questions I attempted, I took my time and at most only 3-4 might have been attempted wrong.
Do I have chances of receiving a really low score? How can I estimate my score?

I voted to close as "Unclear what you're asking". You have no way to know your score before you receive the official one. Any attempt to guess is waste of time, yours and ours.

The official practice book for the Math Subject Exam describes how to score an exam.
According to this practice book, a typical scaled score in 2008-2009 for someone with a raw score of 41 (42 correct answer, 4 incorrect answers = 41 raw score) might be around 730, or 72nd percentile.
You can calculate the score for other possible scenarios following the procedure described in the practice book.
As for whether this is considered a "really low score," please see What is an acceptable math GRE subject score.

Can you please comment if negative marking in gre subject mathematics test is still being followed today?
First paragraph in below link states it doesn't:
https://www.ets.org/gre/subject/scores/how/.
While below link states they follow negative marking:
https://www.greguide.com/gre-mathematics-subject-test.html


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Best practice in versioning / backing up work?
When I work on a paper I end up with folders paperXYZ, paperXYZ_R1, paperXYZ_R2, etc. Same thing happens with my code, project material, etc. This creates clattering and confusion. In addition, I need to backup things very often, to make sure nothing gets lost. Finally, once a paper / project is done, I need to archive it somewhere with easy access and searchable.
For a long time I was using the old fashion copy and rename the folder and every week backup everything to an external hard drive. Then, I moved to keeping everything on Dropbox, this lived shortly because I ran out of space. Now, I am slowly migrating my code to git repositories (bitbucket.org) and I still copy and rename the folders for my papers.
My questions are:

How do you keep the versions of your work, mainly concerning publications? But also other projects and code.
Where do you backup your final versions (the editable material, not the final pdf)?

Points like easiness of use, safety of material, easiness to search, etc. are welcome.
I know this is a subjective question (i.e. I know I'm pushing my luck), but I would like to see what people actually use and maybe get some ideas on what is considered best practice.

Honestly, I find a versioning control system (e.g. git or SVN) useful for the papers too, especially if they're written in latex. Doesn't help with final storage too much though.

Also see: Secure backups of PhD and journal-research, Why use version control systems for writing a paper, Advantages or disadvantages of using public repositories for paper writing?

@ff524 Indeed it's the same question... i failed to find it when I searched. Should I delete my post?


text:
Is the development of an original/novel method a contribution to knowledge worthy of a PhD?
A PhD is supposed to be an "original contribution to knowledge". In my own PhD (in an area of Earth Science) I have so far focused on developing a particular method of computer modeling that will hopefully have a range of applications in my field. In short, my question is: Is the development of an original/novel method a contribution to knowledge worthy of a PhD?
The reason for asking this is that my supervisor seems concerned that I am drifting away from the 'pure science questions' in my field - i.e I ought to be trying to address a fundamental research question with this new model, rather than spending most of my time developing and testing a new method.
My instinct says that it should be just as valid, and browsing some of the other PhD theses from the department suggests that a few others have gone down this route. I also see plenty of papers published that are more 'methods-focused' than 'fundamental-question-addressing'. Personally, I get a lot more satisfaction from pursuing the former kind of research, even though I accept I am not directly answering 'the big questions' as my supervisor puts it.
On the other hand, I don't predict an entirely healthy academic relationship down the line if our opinion on what constitutes an interesting PhD thesis differs so fundamentally, and I also consider the possibility that I could just be plain wrong in my interpretation of "original contribution to knowledge".

Is the development of an original/novel method a contribution to knowledge worthy of a PhD?

This depends largely on what you mean with "method". Coming up with a theoretically sound way to tackle a specific class of research problems better than currently possible is likely a good contribution (with potential for very high impact). If "method" means a technical improvement of an existing approach or tool, the contribution may be too technical.
However, as you indicate yourself, this really isn't the important practical question in your case. Even if we all here agree that a new method is a solid research outcome for a PhD student, what good is this to you if your advisor disagrees? At the end of the day, your research needs to make both, you and your advisor happy. Doing something that your advisor does not think is PhD-worthy will lead to no ends of trouble, no matter what we random people on the internet have said.

These top two answers were good, but I chose this one as you rightly point out that it's an advisor/student issue if we don't see eye to eye on what a PhD thesis should be.

While developing a method has merit within science, that method needs to be useful to answer a question which is not currently answerable. I too have worked primarily on methods development in graduate school, and got stung by this in some of my early work. So, while it's good to focus on the method, always have the question in front of you: "what do we want to know, that we can't know yet, that my method will be able to tell us?"

Alternatively, the method needs to be considerably more efficient.  Just because there's a solution available, if it takes significant amounts of time to calculate (even using a computer) and your new method makes the work comparatively trivial...  I'm thinking reducing Big-O for CS algorithms and such for "important" functions.

Yes, definitely.

@Doc I'm curious as to how you were "stung" by this approach - did you feel it affected your chances of progressing into an academic career? Or did you find that you weren't in a strong position for the viva/defence from focusing on method over fundamentals?

This looks like it was more directed to me? Anyway, in general it's much harder to get published in the "best" journals with only a method than it is with a method + new science. I think this is fair too - if you can't find a good use for your method, why should someone else try?

@DannyW. Yes, sorry, mis-tagged it! Yes I should clarify, my research isn't just 'method', but more: "Here's a new method x, and now we can use it to predict y much better than before."


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Can a US university force a foreign student to obtain health insurance from a specific provider?
My wife is doing her MBA at a state university, and they have a requirement that she purchases health insurance from a specific provider (which has a pricing agreement with the university, but that is still very expensive). We have been able to find insurance from other providers at a much lower cost.
This restriction does not apply to local students: they can choose whatever health insurance provider they want. Can the university legally impose this on us, or are they just trying to take advantage of us being foreign? Is there anything we can do?

When I enrolled in a grad program, we were given the option to sign a waiver. Is a waiver not available for you?

I'm not sure about the legality, but this practice is at least not uncommon. This was the case for me when I attended Rice University (http://oiss.rice.edu/studenthealth/) and SUNY Geneseo (http://www.geneseo.edu/iss/health_insurance_question), as an international student.

I doubt the university is intentionally taking advantage of international students in this way.  They might be doing a bad job of helping, but I imagine they justify it as being helpful (say, by keeping people unfamiliar with the U.S. system from making bad decisions).  Have you brought this price difference to their attention?  They might give you a waiver from the requirement if you provide proof you have comparable insurance from elsewhere, or they might decide to change insurance companies in the future.  Or they might explain why the other company is not as good a deal as it sounds.

Even if they can't or won't accommodate your preferences, you at least deserve an explanation from them of why the system is set up the way it is.

@AnonymousMathematician We have managed to enroll in Obamacare for for free. We also keep insurance in our home country, just in case we need it for anything major.

If the university is your visa sponsor, it typically has a legal obligation towards Imigration to make sure you have some sort of medical coverage, this might be their way of simplifying the process.

According to the international student health insurance page at the Colorado School of Mines, which also requires international students to enroll in the school insurance plan, it is legal.
The legal rationale they offer is:

It's not considered discrimination to have different policies for U.S. citizen vs. international students, so long as the requirements are the same for all international students regardless of country of origin:

"The University may impose such a requirement on all students who are not United States citizens. Such a requirement is not regarded as discrimination on the basis of national origin by the courts. See Espinoza vs. Farah, 6 FEP 931 (November 19, 1973). This is true so long as no distinction is made between citizens of different foreign countries” (Joseph Goldhammer, Resident Legal Counsel, Office of the Attorney General, Dept. of Law, State of Colorado, regarding Foreign Student Health Insurance).

Federal immigration law itself imposes certain health insurance or other requirements on foreign students:

Most students come to U.S. institutions under an “F” visa. Federal immigration law requires that this subclass of non-immigrants provide proof of their financial ability to support themselves and the cost of their education. These requirements have not been found to violate the equal protection amendment to the constitution. (Anwo vs. Immigration and Naturalization Service., 607 F.2d 435 D.C. Cir 1979). Colorado School of Mines considers medical insurance an integral part of the students ability to support themselves. Federal immigration law also requires that exchange visitors and their accompanying spouse/dependent(s) coming to the United States on a "J" visa carry medical insurance. ( 22 CFR 515.14)

(Note that J-1 visa holders are required to have health insurance meeting certain minimum requirements, not just any health insurance.)
Courts have recognized that specifically mandating health insurance for foreign students is not discriminatory:

Equal Protection Analysis/14th Amendment to the Constitution: The U.S. constitution requires that "no state shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law." Is requiring health insurance of international students discriminatory? Does it violate those students' constitutional equal protection rights? Case law differentiates the legal rights of U.S. citizens and permanent residents from the legal rights of non-immigrant aliens, those persons who are in the United States for a short period of time and for a particular purpose. Courts have recognized that requiring health insurance protects the students' ability to exist in the community, realizing the high costs of health care in this country (Ahmed v. University of Toledo, 822 F.2d 26 6th Cir. 1987). Further, courts have acknowledged that requiring health insurance is consistent with, and supports the purposes of, federal immigration law. “International students do not have a constitutional right to attend American universities without complying with the institutions' reasonable regulations.” (Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 1982).

The website also says "Any eligible student who is subject to the Colorado School of Mines' insurance requirement and is found to be uninsured during the Plan Year or found that their coverage does not meet CSM's requirements will be enrolled in the SHIP". It does seem to allow alternative providers.

@Eduardo "All International students enrolled in courses at the Colorado School of Mines are required to enroll in the SHIP." I think the statement you cite is in reference to students who un-enroll mid-year.


text:
How does the community decide whether to name a model/theorem after an author?
In this question I asked:

Assume that Jane Doe has published a paper in 2010 where she has developed a model or a theorem or a similar result, let's say for concreteness that it relates to "growth"
Now assume that Jane Doe is writing another paper in 2015, where she refers to the model/theorem from her paper in 2010.
Is it acceptable for Jane to write: "Doe's growth model (2010), implies that ..." or "Doe's growth theorem (2010) implies that ...", or even "The Doe growth model (2010) implies ..."?

The answer seems to generally be "no".
@jakebeal states:

"Newton's Laws" and "Hawking radiation" and "Rayleigh scattering" are retrospective judgements of significance by the community.

@user2768 states:

Writing "Doe's growth model" or "Doe's growth theorem" suggests that the community has agreed to name Doe's results this way.

This leaves me with the question: How does the community come to agree to call such a model "Doe's growth model"? By what process is this decided?

See What is the general protocol to name something after somebody (some people)?. Also see Why the taboo against naming discoveries after yourself? and Can a discoverer give the name he wants to his finding?

To give you a resonant example, Bruno Buchberger wrote his PhD about an algorithm for finding some special kind of ideal bases. As the bases' description came more or less from his supervisor, he named them after him, the Gröbner bases. The algorithm got subsequently called the Buchberger algorithm.

I do not think that a community has ever decided to do anything ever. People do thinks, if enough people do them, the community "does them". How did the internet community decide to use LUL instead of lol?

There is no concrete way that I know of to determine the name of a model or theorem. In the past the following methods seem to have applied:

The author calls it something to refer to it and then it gets famous and everyone else uses that name.
The author doesn't name it but just talks about the subject and the idea through multiple papers. The papers become famous, and people start referring to it as "The Auther's Blank."
The author comes up with an idea based on previous work, and in crediting the inspirational work, ends up calling it "Original Author's Special Idea" which then is how other people refer to it until said name becomes common.

While I personally believe that naming it after yourself is bordering extreme hubris a bit too much for my own comfort, I imagine that it's tough to refer to some nameless idea. My suggestion would be to give the specific model a name that doesn't use your name. This will emphasize the fact that it needs a name and that you're not some narcissist trying to name everything after yourself. Then, if the model proves useful, others also have a convenient name for it -- preferably something close to what you referred to it as in the original paper.
For example, if I were writing that, my reference to the model would be something like: "In the 2010 paper _______, Doe [and the other authors attributed fairly] put forth the model ____, termed  for brevity." Then I would describe the model and how it relates to the work.

+1 There is no "decision" to name something after an author; it just happens over time. "We interpolate the data using the frequency estimation of Good (1953)." -> "Smoothing was done using Good-Turing frequency estimation" -> "Good-Turing smoothing"

@errantlinguist Fantastic example. (It could almost be an answer on its own IMO)

@DavidZ your wish is my command: I wrote a far-too-detailed answer expanding my comment.

Matthew Dumas already answered from a historical perspective, explaining what scientists have done. Now I will answer from a linguistic one, explaining why it was done.
No person or people "decide" when to name a model after an author; What you see from today's perspective is a result of a long process of lexicalization, whereby new words (lexical items) or — more loosely — terms† are added to the language of a community: Communication is a collaborative process, and language is always changing even without intentionally thinking "I'm going to use this other person's term because others are more familiar with it" (even Queen Elizabeth's language has changed over time, and she doesn't need to impress many people).
Naming scientific methods is analogous to other forms of lexicalization, such as

cleaning the floors with a vacuum cleaner/Hoover → vacuuming/Hoovering the floor → vacuuming/Hoovering
communicating via electronic mail → writing an e-mail → emailing

In other words, descriptions of relatively "new" concepts are initially very analytic in structure, i.e. the meaning can be inferred directly from the structure of the language. Consider the examples below:

We interpolate the data using the frequency estimation of Good (1953).

Here, the concepts signified by frequency estimation and Good (1953) are already accepted well enough to be understandable by those in the relevant linguistic community; I imagine that this sentence would have been perfectly acceptable even in an article from 1954.
Over time, however, common concepts tend to be signified by more synthetic constructions, such as:

Smoothing was done using Good-Turing frequency estimation.

Here, Good-Turing frequency estimation signifies the same thing but is slightly less compositional: Yes, it is still denotes a "type" of frequency estimation, but in an associative manner rather than an ascriptive one (such as seen in effective frequency estimation). In other words, it is frequency estimation associated with Good and Turing. Jump forward even further in time and you have phrases like Good-Turing smoothing which are even less amenable to structural analysis.
At the end of the road, you finally have terms which are so firmly lexicalized that their "original" meaning is no longer apparent to any but the most historically-aware people. Exemplars of this in regards to scientists are e.g. watts, volts and angstroms: I knew what they were from a very young age, but only much later did I find out that there were actually people with those names, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
TL; DR
Eponymous names aren't invented; They form over time as people become accustomed to the work denoted by the name. In other words, language conventions aren't decided by anyone but rather emerge from the collective behavior of a large group of people.

† What constitutes a "word" is itself debatable and is not a binary distinction of being either "100% word" or "0% word". The more "word-like" something is, however, the more stable the relationship between the signifier (the word) and the signified is, and the less compositional the meaning is: e.g. White House can be considered one word because its meaning is clearly not a "house which is white".

Often there is no committee or a formal decision, it just happens. So it is a complex social process. The consequence is that inventions are rarely called after its inventor. See Stigler's law of eponymy, which is of course not named after its inventor.

Yes, it just happens ... see http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/man-who-suggested-boaty-mcboatface-for-the-name-of-200m-research-vessel-has-apologised-profusely-a6944036.html


text:
Contacting a potential PhD supervisor
from reading previous posts it seems customary to directly contact a potential supervisor. Nevertheless, the school I'm applying seems to have a central admission comittee. Still, the professor in question encourages PhD candidates to contact him. Do i have less of a chance if i do not write him prior to the application and does he potentially expect some content other than explained here. Also, isnt it rude to directly address a professor with their first name at first contact?

Do not address a professor by his/her first name in your first email.

Admissions is almost always through some sort of central committee that is in charge of choosing the most qualified/best fit students for the program. However, individual professors have a lot of influence over the process, especially in determining "fit": there is really no better way to be a "fit" candidate than to have a mutual interest with a professor in the program.

Additionally, a professor may have their own money available to fund a student, in which case the admissions committee decision changes from "Is this one of the top X students? Because we have enough money for only X students..." to "Is this student likely to be successful in our program?" - the latter is a much less competitive bar to reach.

You question has multiple elements, I will try to answer each of them:

I would advise against using first name. Just use Pr. LastName, which is formal, polite and concise
It is better to write him prior to the application and this can greatly affect your chance. By all means, it is likely that the central admission committee would contact your potential advisor or that your potential advisor could speak in your favor to the committee. You will lose nothing out of asking him beforehand. If I were a professor and I got an applicant that put my name as potential supervisor without asking me first, I would be slightly uncomfortable.
The answer you have quoted gives sufficient information I believe. A concise statement of your research interest, some articles of the professor you have liked to show you have read his work, your grade transcripts and your CV. All this combined should be perfect, just do not write an overly long e-mail and always remain polite and formal.

Like I said, you can only gain from writing the potential adviser beforehand.


text:
Is submitting papers based on classwork papers self-plagiarism?
I have just completed a Ph.D. in May and have some papers I wrote for classwork that I would like to use to write articles for submission to publications.
Would this be self-plagiarism?  How do I handle this?

Can you clarify, what are the "papers you wrote for classwork"? Were they published as a part of your thesis?

not part of dissertation... just short papers done for various classes.  not published.

The problem with typical self-plagiarism is that a scientific work or part of it is published twice in a peer-reviewed venue. This inflates the scientific credit obtained for this work and wastes the times of everybody involved in the publication process.
Assuming that your classwork is not scientifically published (if it is, you should know), you should not commit self-plagiarism. To be on the safe side, I suggest to clearly reveal the history of your paper when submitting. This way, the publisher cannot claim that you hid something from them and they can decide themselves whether they have any problems with it.
Some further remarks:

If your work was published non-scientifically (e.g., hosted on the course’s website), this may conflict with the exclusive copyright wanted by some publishers. However, for most publishers, this should not pose a problem. Be sure to read the copyright-transfer agreement or similar thoroughly in this respect.
Your university may impose some restrictions on publishing coursework. You’ll have to check.
Be aware that whoever supervised your classwork (if anybody) may have contributed to it to such an extent that they deserve authorship. Again, this is something you have to check.

Unless it is a case such as von Neumann's (or Dantzig's) where they solved some unsolved homework problems, in which case, a statement such as "problem posed by [...]" might be appropriate.

Would this be self-plagiarism? How do I handle this?

The answer here is simple: no, this would not be self-plagiarism. You would best handle this by not worrying about it.
More precisely, the entire concept of self-plagiarism simply doesn't apply in this situation, since the purpose of submitting work for publication is fundamentally different than submitting work as classwork for a course - in one case you are trying to prove that you have mastered some body of knowledge that's already known, and in another case you are trying to publicize (presumably) new things you've discovered.
It follows that the credit you would be getting for each of those two types of submissions is also of a fundamentally different nature from the other. The bottom line is that I don't see how anyone could reasonably accuse you of trying to get credit twice for the same work in a dishonest way (which is the essence of self-plagiarism), regardless of whether or not you mention in the papers you write that the work originated as classwork. You may still want to mention the origin of the work in your paper for its curiosity value or because you find it amusing, but it is essentially irrelevant from the reader's point of view.
With that being said, I find the fact that you ostensibly came up with original research as part of a class assignment highly unusual and even somewhat suspect. I would encourage you to consult an experienced researcher (preferably the instructor of the course you did the work for) about whether you assessment of the publishability of these results is accurate.
Finally, while you don't need to worry about self-plagiarism in this case, as Wrzlprmft and Captain Emacs suggested you do need to give credit to others for any contributions they made to the work, so indeed a "problem posed by [...]" or similar type of acknowledgement may be necessary. (The other concerns expressed in Wrzlprmft's answer seem like total non-issues to me.)


text:
May I call Samuel Johnson a PhD?
According to Wikipedia, Samuel Johnson

was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1765 by Trinity College Dublin and in 1775 by Oxford University.

Also, apparently people referred to him as "Dr Johnson" back then.
May I put "PhD" after his name now, for example, in a caption?  Like this?

Samuel Johnson, PhD (1709–1784)

I'd say calling an Honorary doctorate a PhD is confusing at best, but there may be conventions of which I'm unaware.

He was an LL.D. of TCD. There are no Oxford PhD's they are D.Phil. s. But there were none in Dr Johnson's day. Was he a DCL of Oxford?

My impression is that calling him "Dr. Johnson" was based on his erudition, rather than degrees. (For that matter, the degree system was not much like the modern one at that time!)

Related:  "If I receive an “honorary doctorate” from a reputable university, would it be wrong to refer to myself as “doctor”?".

@paulgarrett - Was it unusual for someone erudite with no doctorate to be called "doctor"?  Was it customary to call someone with a doctorate "doctor"?  How rare was it to earn a doctorate (I mean, not in the way Johnson did)?

@aparente001, I really don't have an authoritative answer to any of your comment-questions... but I do not recall any other historical figure of that time being chronically referred to as "Doctor..." as was Johnson, and certainly some of them had passed the bar, and so on. Dunno, but Johnson seems to be singular in always being referred to in that fashion.

Dr Routh (1755-1854), of "verify your references" fame, is lightly later but always Dr Routh. I think in University circles it was absolutely standard to call holders of doctorates "Doctor". And even in London, see Pepys' diary and John Evelyn's.

@paulgarrett fwiw, the ODNB seems to suggest that "Dr Johnson" was popularised after he was awarded the LLD. That's not to say it was solely because of the doctorate, but it certainly wasn't entirely independent of it.

No.
He was an LL D of Trinity College, granted 1765; and a DCL of Oxford, granted 1775.
See https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-Johnson
Note:
DCL= Doctor of Civil Law.
LL.D.= Doctor of Laws, that is of both the Civil and the Canon Law.

DCL = Doctor of Civil Law?  Is that why people called him "Dr. Johnson"?  I just found http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-14918# which says the letters "MA" were put after his name when his dictionary was published.

He was awarded the Oxford Master of Arts just before the Dictionary was published. His biographer Boswell calls him Doctor because of the LL.D., look at the biography's title.

I am not sure why you would want to do this, but it seems both anachronistic and misleading. Johnson was not awarded a PhD by either institution, and the degree he was awarded was not equivalent to a modern PhD.


text:
My paper was under review for two days and now is 'Awaiting AE Recommendation'. What does this indicate?
I submitted a research paper to a journal. After one day the status was EA assignment pending and after two more days it was under review. But only after two days under review the status changed to “Awaiting AE Recommendation”. Can anybody please tell me what does it indicate?

Nobody by the AE knows. Maybe the reviews were quick or a reviewer declined the review. You will find out when you find out.

I don't think a decline on the reviewers part would lead to a post-review status

Using something named Google; "Awaiting AE recommendation -> The paper received the sufficient number of reviews (usually 2) and, on their basis, AE
makes recommendation to EIC."
That is a very fast review process. Maybe the reviewer(s) had some spare time, maybe a glance at the paper was enough (although that would be odd, as an editor would normally decide a straight reject if this is what the paper calls for)

To give the OP a bit of credit, the google answer you quote seems implausible given the short time duration--as you note. Perhaps on that particular editorial management system, this means that the AE is in the process of deciding whether to desk reject the paper or to send it to review.

@Corvus The OP indicates the paper was already "under review" though only for two days.

@AndreasBlass You're right -- reading comprehension fail on my part. New guess: the journal is on Beall's list? I don't know how else you get reviews back in that time span.

@Corvus I have had a paper accepted three days after submitting it. This was in a reputable (though not top) math journal.

@TobiasKildetoft And do you feel that it had been adequately peer reviewed in that time?

@Corvus No, the reviewer comments were pretty good and certainly indicated that they had read the paper (this was a quite short paper though).

AE stands for "Associate Editor.""Awaiting AE recommendation" status means that the AE has collected all reviews from the reviewers who were assigned to review your manuscript and that the AE's decision for acceptance is pending.
t backed up) waiting to be sent to some reviews.
If it has been reviewed., the AE would send her/his report to the EiC (Editor in Cheif), for the final decision on accepting the manuscript for publication in the journal based on the review results and the report from the AE.
It could also perhaps be that it is waiting to be sent to reviewers, but this is probably unlikely and is my take on it, it could just be the terminology used. Most likely your paper has been reviewed very quickly, and is now they are just deciding if it should be published.

AE means it is awaiting associate editor recommendation. I got my paper rejected within two days after that. We asked them to reconsider, and they accepted our appeal. Now it is again AE. Fingers crossed.


text:
How do I deal with a candidate mentioning God twelve times in their application?
My group (engineering) is highly multicultural and diverse. Some of my students come from adversarial ethnic/religious groups, so I made it “set in stone” that politics and religion do not belong in the lab. We respect each other and sometimes discuss cultural differences and habits politely.
I recently received some applications for a new PhD position. One candidate started their C.V. with a huge “in the name of God” and continued throughout their application discussing how God will guide or guided them or God will make sure they get good results and finish their PhD. Overall, I counted the word God in their application twelve times. This left a bad taste to me.
In the particular case, the said candidate was classified much lower that the chosen candidate merit-wise (scores, research experience, etc.).

Is it acceptable to disclose and declare vividly religious preferences in academic applications?
Is this a sign that this person will also be as vocal in the group, thus creating issues?
Should I simply ignore this information, even if the candidate decided for some reason to vocally disclose it? What should I do with it?

Clarifications:

I am in the EU.
There is nothing religious about my university.
The candidate in question is from the Middle East.

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Regardless of my own faith, referring to god a dozen times in an application is highly unusual and rather unprofessional. Prospective PhD students, however, should have some understanding of the professional customs of the field. (After all, you don't go on at length about any other personal and non-work-related beliefs and preferences in applications, proposals, presentations etc..) If the rest of the application is very good, I might look past this. But it is certainly a glaring minus.

I strongly disagree - this perspective excludes people based on their cultural and economic background.  Not everyone has an opportunity to learn "professional" cultural practices before they start their PhD.

@AnonymousPhysicist I think you point to an important consideration, thanks. I'd say professionalism can and should be learned during undergrad studies. Sure, not everybody manages to learn it, but that in itself is not an excuse. However, while referring 12 times to god looks pretty unprofessional to me, it should really be only one factor in the overall evaluation of the application, which should also take the cultural context into account.

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People in some Middle Eastern countries use the name of god so frequently that these words are becoming familiar even in the west:. Inshallah, wallah, ilhamdulillah, mashallah, yallah (i think) and probably a few more. For less religious people these are just phrases they use without thinking twice, but the more religious are quite conscious of their literal meaning when they say them.
So if the candidate is from the Middle East, it may just be a bad translation, or it means that the candidate is quite religious.
This is just anecdotical, but I personally have told several quite religious people from the Middle East that I have no religion and I have not gotten any (visibly) negative reaction yet. So I would not automatically assume that a religious candidate from these countries will have problems tolerating other views. These countries have different degrees of piousness too, and anyway if he/she moves abroad, they are probably aware that they have to adapt to their new environment.
Obviously the letter you received (if it was indeed from the middle east) was not particularly well-adapted to western culture, but then one might first need to become familiar with western culture before one can adapt to it.
P.S. as a native speaker of German, I quite often use Gott sei Dank (thank god) in everyday life. I would not use it in any formal letter because it is a somewhat informal expression. But it probably would not occur to me that using such a phrase might be culturally inappropriate.

Those phrases mean, roughly: "hopefully", "really", "I am relieve/gratified/thankful", "I am resigned to fate / recognize the inescapability of fate", "let's go / come on".

I read the paper "Genre Analysis of Appeal Letter Writing by Iranian Students" which found that Iranian students wrote longer introductions and salutations and used proverbs and kinship terms, as apparently is common in Persian formal writing. I expect Arabic formal writing is at least somewhat similar. It seems to me that this answer appropriately describes the actual problem: they aren't good at writing in English or the specific EU country's language and resorted to translation; they aren't necessarily thinking about religion or God.

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There are several questions here.
First, most people consider their religious beliefs to be a private matter, though that is not true for all cultures. If someone is applying to a school that shares a culture in which god is "worn on the sleeve" then it would be fine, I guess, but in a cross-cultural application it might be unwise for the applicant. Not every place has policies such as yours.
Whether the person will be disruptive or not is unknown and you won't really know unless you have a conversation with them, provided that they are ranked highly enough on proper criteria to merit a close  look.
In general, I would consider "disclosing" their religion to be benign and I would even expect to have to make some allowances for some folks so that they can carry out their religious practices. But proselytizing for a particular religion, whatever it is, would likely be disruptive. You might need to have some rules around that, so that people know that they have to keep to the job at hand when working.
As to the question of letting religion declarations influence your hiring decisions, I would adopt practices such as yours. Your religion is your business, not mine. Other, more relevant, things will influence the hiring decision.

The burden of facilitating cross-cultural interactions should lie on the university, not the prospective student.  One should not assume someone who wants to learn has already been educated.

@AnonymousPhysicist, I don't think I suggested otherwise.

You didn't, but you might be misinterpreted as having done so.

Some religious, or currents within religions, hold the opposite view. Specifically, Islam and Judaism developed as state religions, and have specific teachings regarding the conduct of public affairs, upto and including diplomacy and war. So, I would disagree with the claim that "most people consider their religious beliefs to be a private matter".

@einpoklum, you are mistaking doctrinal views with the views of the individuals who belong to those religions. Not every member of any religion thinks much about such things. Fundamentalists, I suppose, but that isn't "the majority". Don't assume, for example, that everyone that calls themself christian actually follows the teachings of Christ.

"Not every" - granted, but a huge fraction if not a majority. It's not about fundamentalism. The idea that religious beliefs are private is absolutely not universal. In fact, IIANM, its current adoption in Europe and the US goes back to the enlightenment period.

@einpoklum, I don't claim it is  universal and suggest there are cultural issues. Also, I don't think that a majority (or even much of a plurality) of American Jews are longing to move to Israel, nor Muslims wanting to live in Saudi Arabia or Iran. I know some who have escaped from such places, actually. I also know some Israelis who are not especially happy with some of the religious restrictions in their home country. There are flavors of all the major religions.

I don't understand how your latest comment relates to mine.

You should ignore this information the candidate volunteered in their application.  Instead, address diversity and inclusion at the interview stage for ALL candidates.
There is a cultural (religious) difference between yourself and the candidate.  A university should be a diverse, tolerant, and inclusive place.  The real test of tolerance is to tolerate views that are widely different from yours.
Diversity and inclusion should be addressed in the interview part of the application process, but you should ask all candidates the same questions, in particular for such a sensitive topic.  Those questions should aim to ensure that the candidate can respect the diverse, tolerant, and inclusive place that the university is.  Should the answers from one of the candidates reveal that they will not be able to respect this environment, then that will rule them out from being hired.  However, you cannot infer this from the frequency of mentioning God in the application.
Everybody has prejudices.  Perhaps some people think that if a candidate mentions God twelve times they might refuse to work with gays, but we don't know that.  We all need to become aware of our prejudices, try to overcome them, and design systems such that our prejudices do not lead to discrimination of others.
P.S. I believe that in particular a rule "politics do not belong in the lab" is difficult to enforce.  If I put a rainbow sticker on my door with the text "I stand with LGBTQ", will I be told to remove this?  Is it bad if during the coffee break I discuss how I was at the March for Science or the Scientists for Future during the weekend?  How about union activity, which is inherently political but you probably cannot legally keep out of the lab?  If you have such a rule, you need to provide some guidelines on their interpretation.

"You should ignore this information". If a candidate says in their cover letter (which is important for me) that X will guide them to complete the PhD, should I ignore the whole phrase? Should I remove the 10+ phrases that refer to that and reread what is left? Or, do you suggest I try to fill in the gaps by myself? Is that fair to others that have written a stunning cover letter that describes their passion for research and their drive, their own achievements?

Concerning the politics rule, my group have been respecting it until now and I haven't had need to enforce it. I had to mediate once but both parties agreed to drop it while in the Lab. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

@electrique I'm not sure, but I think cover letters are not very important. I haven't been on the hiring side of PhD student candidates or employees, but I have assisted in ranking Master students applications for a competitive scholarship.  There was a list of criteria, we scanned the provided documents to see what criteria were met, and all information not related to the criteria had no impact on the application. The only positive impact of the cover letter may have been to point us to relevant information elsewhere to reduce the risk of us overlooking something.

Of course, including irrelevant information (I've gazed at the stars since I was a child or not unrelated to a space science & engineering application but still irrelevant for the ranking of candidates) increases the likelihood of relevant information being overlooked. Maybe you could determine strength of motivation from a cover letter but I suspect that works better at interview stage (I was apparently downranked on motivation at my last interview, fair enough as I'd received a preferable offer from same employer 3 days prior).

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. Middle East. I prefer not to point the exact country. I've had 5 candidates from the same country, even same university 1, the candidate was the only one volunteering the religious info.

"Perhaps some people think that if a candidate mentions God twelve times they might refuse to work with gays, but we don't know that". Well, let's be honest, there aren't many religions which could be mentioned 12 times in a cover letter. And a particular one doesn't seem to be too tolerant towards homosexuality or apostasy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_for_homosexuality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_against_atheists). But you're right, we cannot know even if there's a higher probability of it being the case. It just would be a good idea to check.

@gerrit I disagree. The cover letter is used to point the recruiter to the right direction and convince why you fit the profile they are looking. In the call, I ask for good experience in skill A and B. I expect the cover letter to tell me if you have that experience or not. If not, how do you make up for it. If I have to dig out of a 10-page CV to estimate/guess if you have skill A because you wasted the cover letter on something else, it's certainly not helping.

@EricDuminil Even if anti-gay attitudes are statistically more common in some religions than in others, to check it only for some candidates and not for others would be discrimination based on religion, which would be wrong, illegal, (and even ineffective, considering there are atheists who hate gays).  Candidate should be judged based on their own relevant characteristics, not on views that happen to be common in a group they belong to.

@electrique Yes, that's what I meant with point to relevant information, and indeed anything that does not point to relevant information is noise. Writing a poor cover letter is a pity for both the candidate and the university/employer, because it increases the risk of overlooking good candidates. I don't know how effective "how to make up for it" phrases in cover letters are, I suppose it depends on how rigid the ranking system is.

@EricDuminil How would you "check" that? Ask every applicant from the ME if they are "okay with gays"? Ask only obviously religious people, in an effort to disguise overt discrimination with a different flavor of overt discrimination? Ask everybody? Even if you did, how would you know you got the correct answer?

@gormadoc: I'm not in a position to choose. If I were, I honestly wouldn't even bother to check anything else after reading this application. I met a few intolerant religious people over the years, and lack of respect towards women was a clear indicator of intolerance towards other groups. No need to specifically ask about gays/atheists or other religions, simply observe how the applicant interacts with women during the interview.

If someone refuses to work with gay people, that’s the problem solved. It’s not a legitimate reason to refuse working with someone.

While Muslims are probably the least pro-gay cultural group today, I have never actually met any anti-gay Muslims personally. I read about them so I know they exist, and if I chatted with working-class Muslims I’d probably encounter it. But among highly educated professionals- never, not from the Middle East, not from South Asia, and not from Malaysia

What do the other applicants say about (for example), how they intend to conduct their research? If one candidate says something like 'I completed this similar project, have done this reading, and my references can attest to my ability to be creative', and the other candidate says 'God will guide me to the solution', then clearly the first candidate is better. This is not because of the overt religious stance, it's because the second candidate did not actually provide any evidence that they can do research.
While I understand your discomfort with the overt religious stance taken by the applicant, the initial assessment of their suitability should be based on the information they have provided that is relevant to their ability to complete the PhD. If you discover that they have actually provided that information (as well as the religious references) and they are a strong candidate, then you interview them like you would for the others.
During the interview (for all candidates) you can mention lab rules. If diversity is part of the selection criteria, you can even have a question that specifically asks for their views of the pros and cons of diverse lab and mention that you have a lab with a range of cultural differences including religion.

What if he says “God will help me, like he helped me before”? Someone can be a good problem solver and attribute his success to god.

@gnasher729 if someone answered 'it came to me in a dream', you'd still follow up with additional questions about what they did. Either they can explain their research process or they can't. I wouldn't employ someone who responded 'I wait until God tells me the answer' but that's not because they attribute their success to God, it's because they are not doing anything else while waiting

I think you would be opening yourself up to a discrimination lawsuit if you wrote that as a reason for rejecting a candidate. Naturally in your case you did no such thing, but if you had that would definitely be illegal, and possibly for multiple reasons if your lab is at a publicly funded university.
I do think that it's kind of weird to talk about God in your resume. But I've seen papers from Egyptian universities that start with "In the name of God the most merciful..."

I don't think anyone would be so silly do "write this as a reason for rejecting a candidate".

The opening phrase "In the name of God the most merciful..." is not quite the same as talking about God. It is customary for devout muslims (in some cultures) to start all formal letters and addresses with this phrase, regardless of the content. It's almost like a "Dear Sir" and "Sincerely" in formal letters. It's not quite that - of course it has a religious connotation and is not rheotrically necessary - but the authors would probably not know what you're talking about if you tell them they "talked about God" in the paper.

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore.: Thanks for the compliment, but what I had to contribute was more as comments than as an answer to OP. Also, my knowledge of Arab and Islamic culture is sufficient to know that I don't know enough...

@user111388: Maybe no one would be so silly as to write the reason down in the rejection email, but some would, say, openly speculate about using that reason, on the internet no less, prior to potentially using it. OP's account is certainly not a throwaway. Maybe the applicant does browse SE. I agree that getting caught would be unlikely, but not vanishingly so.

Turkey has a uni rated at about 500 and egypt has one ranked 700 amist world universities. Even after the difficult alphabet was transferred to print in the 1780's for the first arabic printed presses, the theological tradition meant that much of science concencus on biology, astronomy and so forth is still not taught seriously  in many arabic schools as of 2020.

Your program is for engineering. Your prospective student wasn't applying to a Doctor of Ministry program, or to a PhD program at a divinity school. So establishing their bona fides in their religious practice wasn't a necessary part of their application.
And, in my experience as both an engineer and a minister, the Holy One doesn't manipulate reality to make people successful, but instead gives people strength and courage. My point is, your candidate's declarations are even a little suspect in a div school context.
You passed on this candidate for reasons of competence and experience, just like you passed on several other candidates. You have done your recruiting well.
If the candidate comes back and asks for advice on how to improve themselves for future applications, you might advise them to upgrade skills, and spend more space on their specific qualifications for YOUR program.
An edit to my answer.
Your recruiting issue would be different if the candidate were clearly the best choice for your lab. But you can still handle this in a way that's respectful of the candidate and the rest of your team (not to mention yourself). Here's my suggestion about this:
Tell the candidate you're delighted they have spiritual resources to sustain them through the challenges of a PhD program. "Since you brought it up in your CV..." is a good way to open the conversation. Confronting the unknown in the natural world is the stuff of earning science or engineering PhDs, and a student needs strength and courage to keep at it.
Tell them their colleagues-to-be have a diverse array of their own resources for doing that. Make it clear that your group's behavioral norm is to respect each other's ways of working, including their inner / spiritual / whatever resources. And, maybe emphasize that your group members learn a lot from each other.
If the conversation goes further, say something like this. "If you try to convert / proselytize / evangelize people in my group, you are likely to annoy them. That will do your religious cause far more harm than good. And it violates our behavioral norms."
That sets expectations and lets the candidate decide whether your lab is a good match for them.
Footnote: many people embrace religion as a way of embracing the mysteries of life. Others embrace it as a path to certainty. And, PhD-level natural science work is like the former, not the latter. Hence my suggestion to mention confronting the unknown.

While in this case they rejected for other reasons the actual question OP has (not well stated in the question, only clear in comments) is whether they could/should reject them for mentioning God so much if they were otherwise a good choice.

Good point. @gormadoc. I added some material to my answer.

You made a hiring decision based on the appropriate criteria (stated as scores, research experience).
While the extra information was there - that did not influence your decision so you don't have any concerns. Whether the candidate will try to makes "waves" citing religious persecution is a different question.

But the question is general in nature: even though it wasn't a practical problem this time, what if it were?

What you said is true in OP's specific case, but I think the question exceeds that scope.

There is a lack of professionalism in the candidate.

First, decide whether you are hiring a researcher or a missionary.
Then decide whether somebody who mentions God in every other sentence of a job application is the right person for the job.
I think it is perfectly reasonable to assume that if someone does this in a job application, they will also do it if they are hired. It's your decision whether you think that is acceptable or not in your work group.
If you want a researcher, hire the best researcher who applied. If you want a missionary, hire the best missionary.
That is not discrimination against religion per se. The same would be true is somebody mentioned their favourite sport in every other sentence, for example (and working in industry, I can think of one instance where somebody was fired for doing exactly that, or more precisely because of the amount of disruption he caused in the team by doing it.)
I also work in a group where everyone knows there are group members with various degrees of commitment to Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, and probably a few more religions besides. Some of them have organized their own religious activities in unused conference rooms during lunch breaks, etc and nobody cares about that. On the other hand, if anybody started trying to preach to or convert anyone else in the normal working environment, they wouldn't last long.

There are a lot of people that have cultural/religion roots that mandates them to be very fervorous in praising God the most that they can. As other answers already stated, this is common in Middle East, but I already saw some Christian people in the West with the same trait (in my own family to be sincere).
For those people, not praising God wherever they can is bad, ranging from uncomfortable, to simply wrong, to unethical or to sinful, regardless of what the receiver of the message feels about that. Their religious belief mandates that they should praise God wherever possible.
Since you should value inclusiveness, you should not judge people that have such religious views either positively nor negatively. You might personally consider this as fanatism, lunacy, insanity or whatever, but you shouldn't allow your opinion about the candidate's religious belief contaminate your judgement.
To be frank, I also consider that those people are fanatics, and I have some of them in my own family. Also, most of them even are very aware that everyone else considers them as fanatics and they're very proud of this because this makes them believe that they are being successfully in pleasing God if everyone else is seeing them this way. They surely can be very annoying and boring with their religious views and behaviors and they are perfectly aware of that, but they strongly believe that it is an important mandatory part of the mission of their lives acting in such way. So, they are simply behaving in the way that they believe that they should behave regardless of what other people thinks about that.
As any religious belief, their way of life should be respected and tolerated, not suppressed or discriminated. Even if you find that they can behave in a somewhat annoying way to you and to everyone else.

So I made it “set in stone” that politics and religion do not belong in the lab.

Most people would be ok with that. But for those “overly-fervorous”, this sound as religious persecution, suppression or censorship precisely because their religious belief says that they should praise God and talk about their religion as much as possible to whoever possible wherever possible even if the audience does not wants to hear them. In this case, as long as they tolerate other people and doesn't creates serious troubles about religious issues with others, everyone for the sake of inclusiveness should allow them be what they are - fervorous religious.
Inclusivity and respect is not achieved by silencing everyone, even if it is about an issue that have nothing to do with the work or the environment that you're working on. It is achieved by having everyone be ok with everyone else speaking about things that no one else believes (as long as it is not dishonest, unethical, criminal, illegal or something like that).
So, change the rule to the similar, but quite different and somewhat weaker as:

“We prefer to not talk in the lab about things that does not belong to the lab as long as possible, like, for example, sports, politics, sexuality and religion.”

You should just ensure that no one creates trouble about that, that everyone knows the rules and that everybody respects everyone else. Just be sure that the rules don't have the unintended effect to lead to some form of censorship, suppression of free speech or something like that. This is something that have a very tenuous line and a lot of shady areas, but as long as everyone gets and understand the rules, it shouldn't create serious issues having someone saying the word "God" too much because they believe that its their obligation to do so.
To directly answer your questions:

Is it acceptable to disclose and declare vividly religious preferences in academic applications?

Yes. This is not the ideal, surely, but should not be disallowed. Disallowing that is a form religious persecution and uninclusiveness.

Is this a sign that this person will also be as vocal in the group, thus creating issues?

Probably. But you can't act against someone due to some issue that they did not created yet even if you are pretty sure that they eventually will.

Should I simply ignore this information, even if the candidate decided for some reason to vocally disclose it? What should I do with it?

Ignore it and evaluate their C.V. as if that information was not there and then evaluate/score it as you would do with any other C.V.

A lab that has a rule "not to talk about anything not lab-related" may scare applicants away. It would for sure scare me away. It seems too controlling.

I don't know Arabic but, I know that this might be a case lost in translation, I know some words that could be translated as "I hope", "if all goes well", "if I may say so", "fortunately" all relating to God. If they have no prior experience in international settings, it is possible that they are just thinking they are being "formal" as this is - what I am guessing - they would write to a prof in their country.
On the other hand, I once had a great professor, a Cambridge alumni, super smart American guy who gave lectures on artificial intelligence to his church and had his church on his website etc.
I don't think it is professional though, it would be useful to maybe have a Skype interview and talk about how the team respects each other's identities etc. - an indirect warning which I hope will serve as a reminder that they will have more than one religion, perhaps no religion, communists, liberals, yadayada among group members

Jan's answer is correct and very good. There are cultures in the world where it is simply expected that God will be acknowledged frequently. It doesn't even necessarily denote particular piety.
To put the matter positively, if you were to exclude such applicants as a matter of course (which you have not done), it would limit the range of applicants you were considering, which would not help you to find the best engineers.
To put the matter negatively, if you were to exclude such applicants as a matter of course, then you would be excluding a fairly specific segment of the globe. I don't believe that that is morally the same as religious or nationality-based discrimination, since you have independent reasons for your concern. But it ought to give any of us pause when our actions (taken for entirely correct reasons) amount to the same action in practice as, e.g., what some right-wing xenophobe would endorse (fill-in-the-blank for your own country).
I reviewed a C.V. for a friend once where the first accomplishment listed was, “Participation in the glorious jihad.” I advised my friend that that probably wasn't the best opening for the job he was applying for. But that's a cultural difference, which doesn't necessarily speak to the candidate's qualification for the particular job.

We are not living in a century when religion played a superior role in every aspect of life including education. You are in an engineering school and a PhD application must talk only about the relevant aspects of engineering. So, definitely this is a minus for the application as the individuals wasting valuable space and your time by using phrases which do not help his cause.
Also, this being a more globalized world, imagine this being read by an atheist. The prospective student is not considerate or has not thought about such scenarios.
Ideally, though this kind of application has a clear minus the candidate must be rejected only if his engineering qualifications are poor.  If selected, it is obvious that the candidate has to give up mentioning 'God' in technical manuscripts. If he is good in his skills, why not interview him and check if he is flexible and open to adapt to the professional workplace.

This type of this really just comes down to cultural differences.  In some countries (particularly in the Middle-East) it is considered to be important to demonstrate one's religious piety, and so it is common to invoke appeals to God in the course of one's writing or work.  I have received a similar application from a Middle-Eastern student, not replete with religious invocations, but with a few of them.
Obviously we are all aware that in secular Western universities the culture generally favours leaving one's religious preferences out of an application.  Most (if not all) Western jurisdictions impose a legal obligation to avoid religious discrimination in assessing entry to educational programs, so most institutions prefer for students not to give us this information to begin with.  In any case, in view of the fact that religious discrimination is to be avoided, I would recommend that one should simply ignore the appeals to God in assessing the application, treating it as neither a positive or a negative.  Likewise, non-discrimination on religious grounds would also imply that the candidate should not be assessed negatively on the basis of concern that they might proselytise their religion whilst at the university or that this "might create issues".  (Firstly because such an inference is premature, and secondly because even if they were to do this, it is probably legally-protected speech in most jurisdictions; to the extent that legally protected speech "creates issues" in a group, that should not be held against that person.)
Since this kind of religious appeal is out-of-place in an application to a Western university (for the aforementioned reasons), it would be reasonable let the applicant know that your university does not take account of religious preferences in assessing applications, and that it is not necessary for the candidate to invoke religious appeals in their application (but by the same token, that will not be held against them).
So, in terms of your specific questions, I would say that if a person declares vividly religious preferences in an academic application, the assessor should not treat it as a positive or a negative.  Likewise, they should not infer that the person will necessarily proselytise their religion while at the school, and even if they do, any speculated instance of legally-protected speech ought not be held against them.  I disagree with other answers here that suggest that this should be held against the applicant as somehow being "insulting" or "inconsiderate" to a reader who does not share the religious views of the applicant.  I'm a staunch atheist and I would not find it even slightly inconsiderate for an applicant to do this (and even if I did, well, that's just tough-luck for me).

I'm not particularly staunch either way, but I would find it inconsiderate: either the applicant is just mechanically spamming a list of email addresses (so literally inconsiderate), or else they have consciously sent it to the OP without any sign that they understand the culture of the institution they are applying to. That's important as the the OP likely also has a legal obligation to protect their existing group from harassment, and unconsidered religious comments can spiral into something fast. The OP can't infer that the person will necessarily proselytise, but also can't not.

You certainly don't have any obligation to protect your existing group from an imagined harassment you speculate solely from someone else's expression of religious piousness.  That kind of speculative leap completely demonises the applicant and would be indicative of an a priori hostile attitude on the part of the recipient of the application.  The idea that a religious person should be presumed guilty of pre-crimes merely by expressing their piousness and devotion to God is quite astonishingly to me.

It's not a directly equivalent example, but the Trinitarian Church putting a verse from the Bible on the side of buses some years back was seriously considered as to whether it was outright hate speech. If someone put it on their office door, even as an "expression of piousness" I would find it insulting, just as I did on the side of a bus at Heathrow, and it would constitute harassment - demeaning others on the basis of religious belief. 1/2

What I said in my comment: the applicant is presumed to be consciously applying to come and study within the UK (for me), possibly elsewhere in the EU (OP). When they arrive they will be expected to stay within the local culture immediately; they will have no grace period within which to learn (one incident is sufficient under UK legislation). No, indeed the OP can't infer that the person will necessarily proselytise, but OP are also responsible for preventing harassment of existing staff and students. 2/3

... That in turn means that the OP must be confident that the applicant understands and will obey local norms from the get-go. The applicant deliberately submitting a document far outside them - 12 mentions, not just one or two - is something that I think the OP can reasonably treat as a warning flag. A warning flag is not an automatic rejection. (It might make for a difficult conversation within the phone interview, though.) Yes, there is also the implication here that the OP has no safe option, that whatever they do can be presented as wrong. (3/3)

Your position here would constitute clear religious discrimination and would be unlawful.  Education providers should not be assessing applicants for pre-crime on the basis of their protected religious beliefs.  Moreover, universities are places where people are free to proselytise their preferred ideology, religion, irreligion, etc., and they ought not be required to conform to the ideological norms of the majority.  Honestly, I think your position is grossly unfair to religious applicants and it if were implemented it would (quite rightly) lead to a lawsuit against the university.

I chose the Trinitarian Church affair as an example because it's a real-world event that you can look up, and it shows how just one one small line can cause a lot of trouble.

By the same token, if I can find an obscure example where an atheist committed a crime (or merely "caused trouble"), should all applications that lack expressions of religious piety lead me to the inference that the applicant might be an atheist, and therefore dangerous?

But I'd forgotten the later 2008/2009 fiasco that overwhelms the searches. The original on the side of the 140 was something like "'The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.'" which explicitly equates non-Christians to "fools", which is an overt insult.

universities are places where people are free to proselytise their preferred ideology, religion, irreligion, etc., No. Put "'The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." on your office door, and you are picking on or undermining me on the basis of religious belief. That's harassment. Proselytising doesn't just mean hour-long sermons. Asking a female colleague to cover her bare legs could be harassment. Why isn't it supposed to be a "safe space" for me and her too? How is asking a candidate at interview whether they understand your local norms unreasonable?

I think we've passed the point where this is a fruitful discussion.  Your position here is unreasonably hostile to religious applicants and makes a number of unreasonable presumptions about them.  I also do not agree with your broad views on "harassment".

Yep, agree. > I also do not agree with your broad views on "harassment" Tough: UK legislation is UK legislation. I even provided a link. The reason why the research sector is rife with bullying, harrassment, and exploitation is because those higher up the ladder duck their responsibilities to deal with it. NB I've not even assumed that the applicant holds religious views (vs they include that phrasing because it's standard in their culture) I merely said talk to them. The only person judging here is you, Ben.

One of the criteria I use in hiring is whether they are a harmonious fit for the existing team.
One of my concerns with this application is that the individual may be too dogmatic and not tolerant of others.  If he passed the first screening, this would be something I would ask him about in the interview, and in follow up questions to his references (by phone).  Possible questions:

We have a Zen Buddhist, a Hindu, two Muslims, a Jew, three atheists, two agnostics, and a Baháʼí on our staff already. Give me examples of how you, a strong {insert his religion} have gotten along with people from a widely diverse religious background. (Are they tolerant of people who have different faiths.)

Also we have homosexuals, transvestites, and transgender individuals on our staff. What is your stance toward this?  (This question looks for tolerance.  Are they going to make a big hairy thing of themselves if they see a gay couple snogging in the mail room?)

Is the bible to be taken literally?  All of it?  Do you follow all the rules in Deuteronomy and Leviticus? (Note: replace bible with whatever holy book they use; replace references to D & L with appropriate references to outmoded rules.  The key function here is to understand if they cling to unworkable rules, or are inconsistent in their beliefs.)

If I told you that you were not to discuss religion or God here at work, could you abide that decision?

Give me examples of cases where you had your mind firmly set on something, and an argument or discussion changed your mind.  If he answers with his own conversion experience, ask him for another example, not related to his religion.

But really, anyone who wears his religion on his sleeve like this should be avoided.  To much potential for conflict.  Find a reason to dump him in the reject pile. But be sure you have better qualified people than him in the reject pile. Do not trash the rest of the reject pile in his case in the event that he decides later to file a discrimination suit.

Edit:  In all my time on a bunch of stack exchange sites, I've never collected such a set of downvotes. I find it quite amusing.
I suggest that the original poster try this same question on Workplace and see what the reactions are.  Maybe I'm a stick in the mud.
I'll agree that the phrasing of my questions need work:  The key element here is to get the candidate to show his (in)tolerance for others during the interview process.  If he is full of faith,but also shows tolerance, then by all means, hire him.  My experience with people like this is that the louder they proclaim their faith, the less tolerant they are of others' beliefs.
I am minded of that quote, attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, "Preach the Gospel always.  If necessary, use words."

Such questions are just asking for trouble/discrimination lawsuits.

You would really ask those questions in a phd interview?! In which jurisdiction are you?

Question 3 contradicts Question 4, and is just asking for the heated discussion that you are supposedly trying to avoid (and for discrimination claims). I strongly recommend against asking Question 3 in a PhD interview.

"Do you follow all the rules in Deuteronomy and Leviticus?"  You seem to assume that the God mentioned by the OP is a Christian or Jewish god.  The OP does not indicate this.

I agree, you're probably asking for troubles with this kind of questions. You can check for intolerant vibes with much more subtle questions. Question #3 would be really weird for an atheist or a theist leaving faith at home.

A more subtle way to check would be to be sure that women are present during the interview, and see if the applicant answers differently depending on who's asking the questions. I've seen too many people disregard good advice simply because it came from women.

You  should really not ask strictly religious questions of dogma like "is the bible to be taken literally". Also, what's it to you? It's like you're assuming you and him/her share a religious reverence of the Bible. BTW - Jewish Bible? Christian Bible? Hacker's Bible?

You can simply look at most people and determine they don't follow all the prescriptions of Leviticus. Are there really that many Orthodox Jews applying for tree farming positions in Alberta that this question is necessary and not illegal?

Though the questions which the above answer suggests that OP ask are not good, probably illegal, I agree with the intent of the answer. Religion must be strictly kept away from science and engineering, in all forms. In the name of diversity and inclusion do not corrupt the existing culture.

FWIW: https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/33558/how-to-respond-to-questions-related-to-religion-during-an-interview

They wouldn't be following Deuteronomy and Leviticus because they're almost certainly a Muslim, anyway. You'd want to ask them if they follow the rules in the Quran and Hadiths, instead.