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Interview for pure math graduate program
I will have an interview for my graduate school application in the coming days. I don't have much research experience but I am taking a few graduate courses which are related with the potential research field, so I think the main part of the interview will be on my coursework. The interviewer is my potential supervisor whose research field is theoretical PDE and applied analysis. The professor is very famous and has a real authority in this research area (at least in my region).
I have talked with the professor before, and he said he will ask me to talk about my "understanding of mathematics" in the interview. To be honest, I don't quite understand what the professor mean. What are the questions a professor will ask in an interview for a pure math program? Is it common to ask me to solve some exercises immediately? I think comparing with solving a specific exercise, "understanding of math" is more high-level, for example, the development of real analysis. Could you give me an example or share me your interview experience?

This is a short summary of the interview. The entire interview took around 1 hour. First the professor read my transcripts and found I had took a course about Fourier analysis. Hence he asked me what is the most useful technique I had learnt in that course and what were the most interesting materials of the course?  Then he asked me about my understanding of graduate-level real analysis. He asked me to state Lebesgue dominated convergence theorem, and asked me why this theorem is correct. I tried to prove the theorem using Fatou's lemma and he thought it's too technical. So after several attempts under his guidance, I finally found out what he wanted is an intuitive understanding of Lebesgue integrable function (what kinds of properties that a Lebesgue integrable  function has, but a riemann integral function does not necessarily have). Finally he asked me to prove some statements/ find some counterexamples related to Lebesgue differentiation theorem, which I thought were selected from PhD qualifying exam. I didn't know much about the differentiation theory at the time, so I just finished what I knew.
Basically the professor only asked me a few questions in the interview and he turned out to agree to take me as a student even though I didn't solve all the problems immediately.

John, if you're still on the site, would you mind posting your experience with the interview? I am a grad student in pure math and was not aked to interview for any of the 11 schools I applied to in the US [I did ask for an interview at my school of choice, which ended up extremely laid-back], so I'm very curious about a serious grad interview :)

@EricStucky I just briefly described the interview. Hope it helps.

My grad school interview for math was a bit different. It was more about determining whether I would accept an offer if they gave me one, because they didn't want to offer places to people who would not take them. I did however interview for my undergrad, and there the questions were on mathematical understanding. A question I was asked was "derive x^x". This is something that most high school students haven't seen, but should be able to figure out with some guidance. I would expect a grad school interview question to follow a similar pattern: ask about something you probably haven't seen before, but that you can figure out with some guidance from the interviewer. They will be looking for how you try to tackle problems you haven't seen and how you justify each step you take.


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Who is typically in charge of a typical US graduate school?
I was studying the website of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences ...
Obviously an impressive institution with a broad scope. But I wonder who is in charge of the operation. For example, on the ABOUT page, I see that there is an interim Dean of the GSAS. Does this individual manage at the highest level or is there someone between her and the professors, e.g. a  kind of middle management (for lack of a better term)?
Id like to learn how US universities structure their institutions, scientifically and bureaucratically. Obviously there are differences between universities, but I’m curious what you know about your university or a university with which you are familiar

"Does this individual manage at the highest level or is there someone between her and the professors, e.g. a kind of middle management (for lack of a better term)?" I don't understand the logic behind your question. It's like asking: Is 15 is the largest number in a certain list of numbers or is there another number between 15 and the smallest number in the list. If anything, if the individual in question manages at the highest level, wouldn't one think it's MORE LIKELY that there would be someone in the middle? In any event, see here.

Typically, there are associate deans and department chairs.

There is no single governing board for all US universities. Every university is different.
In very broad strokes, as your question is quite broad here's how it breaks down.
Board: The Board of Trustees or University Board functions in much the same way a company board does. They meet regularly and make large decisions on spending, hiring, etc.
Chancellor: In some schools, this is the President. Think of them as the CEO that advises the Board and executes the vision.
Provost: Usually the ultimate head of academics in a university.
Deans: Usually lead various colleges. For instance a Dean of the Law School or Dean of Undergraduate Admissions
There are various various administrative staff within all of these. And again, all schools vary in terms of nomenclature.

The United States is a diverse country that comprises of many different universities; it is not correct to say that there is a single, standard way of managing every US university scientifically and bureaucratically.  Judging from your past questions and answers, you are somewhere in Europe.  Just as we don't generalize European universities, we also don't do that here in America.
Having said that, the Dean is often a very high position at a US university.  And yes, there is something of a 'middle management' - but your question is too broad.  Perhaps you can edit your question to be more specific.

Tx for the input — I know there’s diversity, but I’m curious about that diversity! Not sure how I can otherwise phrase the question. I’d like you know how that middle management is organized in a typical US university !

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Is it ethical to ask about the professional profile of a candidate at another university before a job interview?
I’m on the hiring committee for a Asst. Prof position. One of the applicants is working as a (non-TT) TA/postdoc at a dept in another university (but for only appx 6 mo) where I have a colleague (friend of a friend).
Is it ethical for me to ask my colleague about this applicant?
I could request my colleague keep my inquiry confidential, but in a competitive department, doing so may make public that this applicant is looking for another job. I don’t want to cause problems.

Is the applicant currently in a TT role in the other department?

Not a TT position. Just a temporary instructor, not Asst Prof

What sort of questions do you mean to ask? And what sort of potential ethical objections do you have in mind? Other than the confidentiality issue, and other than the case of asking illegitimate questions (e.g. about the candidate's political or religious beliefs), I don't see too much of a problem. But some caution may be required nonetheless, which is why I'm asking for more details.

I think you should edit the current job status into the question since that will lead to very different answers...

I would only ask standard questions, e.g. how the applicant gets along with the faculty, students, etc.

@Teusz then I don’t see any ethical problem. But you might consider whether you stand to learn anything useful. After all, if you don’t plan to ask similar questions from colleagues at the departments of all the other applicants you’re considering, you won’t have anything to compare the information you get about this person to.

At what stage in the process?  I don't see a need to do this in the early to mid stages but I can imagine a situation where you'd want to do this towards the end: suppose this is a candidate you and the committee feel somewhat good about but you have one reservation or red flag that makes you unsure.  Then it would be good to check references carefully and also perhaps informal sources.  I would clear it with the committee first.  Disclaimer: I'm extrapolating from non-university hiring committees, hence not posting an answer.

In most situations fitting the pattern you describe, you should not ask your colleague.  There are several possible cases:

If the candidate has requested their application be kept confidential, you absolutely must not reach out to them or to anyone else the candidate has not listed as a reference.
If the candidate is currently in a tenure-track or other permanent position, I would not ask without checking with the candidate first, because outing them could be very problematic.
If the candidate is currently in a soft-money or other contingent position, then I would similarly be very careful about asking, but the consequences are not as dire as in the previous case.
If the candidate is in a postdoc or similar position where they are expected to be looking for a permanent position, then asking is a violation of the implied confidentiality of the job application process, but it is a common violation.

Thanks a lot. Well, the candidate didn’t ask for confidentiality in the application, so I have no reason to assume such expectations. Also, candidate is not TT, just a T.A. & postdoc, so I suppose it shouldn’t be unexpected that they are on the lookout.

@Teusz There is still a certain implied confidentiality in job applications — the fact that Dr. A applied to job Z is not public information, unless Dr. A chooses to make it such or their on-site interview is communicated to the student body.

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Disclosing consideration for funded Master's during PhD program admissions
As an undergraduate in the admissions process for a PhD program, should I disclose my status as a finalist for a separate and prestigious fellowship that would fund a Master's program? (I have already completed my applications, so any disclosure would occur after having been made an offer by a PhD program.)
If so, when is the appropriate and responsible time to disclose this information?
Importantly, if I were to receive the MA fellowship, I would certainly accept due to its prestige.
My concerns are twofold:
1) I do not wish to lessen my bargaining power by disclosing this information too early in the admissions process (i.e. during negotiations over PhD funding or prior to an official offer).
2) I do not wish to provoke the ire of admissions boards and department faculties by withholding this information until too far into the admissions process. Particularly because I intend to complete my PhD after the MA program, should I happen to be awarded the fellowship.
In terms of a timeline, notification for MA fellowship recipients will be made between March and late April. Most PhD programs expect a decision notification in April.

To my knowledge, PhD students have little or no leverage negotiating funding. Having external funding would save them money, so that would only increase your chances.

@Davidmh While admittedly PhD students have little leverage other than (in some cases) competing offers, nearly every resource for prospective graduate students I have read suggests appealing funding amounts if necessary. Additionally, in this case the external funding is not towards the PhD, but rather towards a non-affiliated MA program.

If we're talking about a program such as a Marshall or Fulbright scholarship, such awards are usually considered sufficient grounds to postpone enrollment while the fellowship is being pursued.
On the other hand, I wouldn't raise this possibility until it becomes an actual issue. You're introducing unnecessary obstacles in the admissions process that way. If an offer comes along from a school or one of these fellowships, you can deal with it then

The program is indeed one of the Marshall/Fulbright/Rhodes tier, so your answer is quite useful. That these programs are typically considered grounds for deferral is especially helpful. Thank you!


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What happens if there are conflicting opinions on a specific paper under review?
In ScholarOne, if there are conflicting opinions on a specific paper under review, would several other members of the editorial board (not just the assigned reviewers) converse on the given article?
I think that if a paper has aroused several conflicting opinions by the assigned peer-reviewers, several other members of the board would participate in the conversation, discussing with each other "behind the scene" by emails etc. on whether the paper should be published or not. Would this happen before the editor-in-chief's decision? I have a fourth article under review and would like to know the general prassi behind the scenes.
In short, what I am thinking, would, in a conflicting situation, some other members of the board participate to a kind of an unformal, "virtual" conversation inside the ScholarOne, and then the last decision would be made.

Can you please try to clarify what you are asking?  I'm rather confused by your statement about intending to have editors have a conversation about your paper.

@Anna, I've attempted to clarify the question while keeping intact what I believe you're is asking. Please revert or edit the question further if I was wrong.

I apologize to have been unclear, jakebeal and Ric. Yes, I intended to ask what Ric clarified: if the decision of the acceptance of the paper is conflicting, is it a normal custom by other members of the board to discuss on the paper's qualities, and with these other members I meant other individuals than those who actually are peer-reviewing the paper. Thank you for editing the question.

I am logging into the system 3-4 times a day, and when the status of the paper changes, my imagination gets probably too lively. At times I have been thinking, when the final decision is delaying, that some other members of the board would participate to a kind of an unformal, "virtual" conversation inside the ScholarOne (I have so far embodied only "author" status, so I dont know other status' roles in the process), behind the curtains, upon a decision of a conflicting paper. This is just my personal curiosity, I would like to know how they really work.

I'm sure YMMV, but there is usually an Associate Editor (a member of the Board to whom the paper was assigned) that will make a recommendation to the Editor based on the reviews. The conversation you refer to usually takes place between the two of them. If an additional review is needed to decide, it can be requested. The rest of the Board is usually not involved (they have their own assignments to worry about). As an author you may or may not know who the Associate Editor assigned to your paper is.

Thank you Prof. Martinez, this is what I wanted to know. I was thinking, if in such a conflicting situation, some other members of the board would participate to a kind of an unformal, "virtual" conversation inside the ScholarOne (I have so far embodied only "author" status, so I dont know other status' roles in the process), behind the curtains, upon a decision of a conflicting paper. This clarified my question well, thank you. I am very interested on these particulars, on these processes how does the paper actually move through different hands.


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Costs of having a US-based PhD supervisor doing a PhD in Germany?
A little background first, as this is maybe not familiar to people outside Germany: In Germany there are universities that can not award PhDs. So called "Hochschulen/Fachhochschulen". This means they have to cooperate with a university that can award PhDs at which the student is then enrolled as PhD student and also has an official PhD supervisor. But the work (and in practice most of the supervision) is done at the "Hochschule". Also notice that in Germany getting a PhD is normally "thesis only", so no course work. Also in this setting the student already has a Masters, which is a requirement in Germany for starting a PhD.
If someone wants to partner with universities in the US to get a PhD, will the student have to pay regular fees / tuition even if it is "thesis only"?
Or do you even need to be officially enrolled at the US university if you have a professor there who agrees the supervise you?

There is no standard structure generally in US universities and certainly nothing like a standard cost structure for this. Probably you would need to pay some tuition fees to the US university but they would vary greatly from institution to institution. You would be contributing to the professor's salary, of course.  I believe that in every case you would need some official enrollment. The only exception I can imagine is if the professor is associated with a German university as well and something can work with that institution.

Can you maybe specify why you would like to have a supervisor from a US university?

@CapeCode The most likely explanation is the OP has a specific supervisor in mind, and they are (now) at a US university ... but I agree it would be good to confirm that.

@MartinBonner yes in that case co-supervision could be a solution providing they find a local uni willing to act as primary institution.

@CapeCode Like Martin Bonner already guessed it is about a specific supervisor.

@JayFromA I know someone who was in a very similar situation, but first I have to ask. Do you need/want to be enrolled in this German institution? If they don't award PhDs and don't have the supervisor you want, why even being there?

@HermanToothrot The projects, research work and supervisor at the German institution are the right ones. The problem is that they can´t award PhDs and therefore there is the need for an external supervisor/university to cooperate. There is an US-based supervisor that would the a very good fit on the work.

Even when cooperating with a German university, the candidate will be subject to any terms or requirements given by the "Promotionsordnung" of the university. (It is true that many of those do not require any additional coursework, but there are formal criteria to meet nonetheless).
Therefore I assume that, also in your envisioned scenario, the student would have to meet any formal requirements that the US university usually imposes on their PhD candidates. This may include not only paying for, but actually taking the coursework for example. The fact that the German "Hochschule" may be satisfied with "thesis only" work will not be relevant then if the US university is the one awarding their degree.

In the situation you describe, you're not really having an external supervisor. You're a PhD candidate in a university and your research happens to be conducted in a Fachhochschule. The central issue as you said is that the Fachhochschule isn't accredited to deliver doctoral degrees.
So what you are asking is: can I join a graduate program in a US university and conduct research in a German Fachhochschule.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's seems like a very long shot.

First you will need to be accepted in a graduate program with (presumably) a Bachelor from a Fachhochschule. I think just that is going to be a major obstacle, especially if you're aiming at a prestigious institution (see: Is it realistic to apply to a Master at MIT, Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Stanford with a Bachelor of a German Fachhochschule?)
Then IF that works out the Fachhochschule’s requirements will be irrelevant. You will in many cases have courses requirements, have to pass quals exams, and all other requirements from the US graduate program. Hardly compatible with you living on another continent.
The research typically conducted in Fachhoschulen can be very different (typically more applied or translational) than what is done in universities. It might be hard to meet the university's standards for a PhD thesis.

Specifically to your question "will the student have to pay regular fees / tuition even if it is "thesis only"?" the answer is quite probably yes. Usually graduate students and their supervisors seek funding to cover all costs including tuition and stipend.
Maybe you should re-think your strategy and possible try to do a Masters in a German University first. Then applying to a US graduate program might be more plausible. Alternatively you could look at having co-supervision with a professor in a local university.

Thanks for your insights. As a site note: already having a Masters is generally a requirement for starting a PhD in Germany. That´s why it is normally "thesis only". I added this to the question.

Adding to this answer. It will be quite complicated also regarding the US visa issues. You will have to be enrolled at the US university to stay in the program, even if you are not physically in the US, so even if you are away you will need to pay tuition.

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Where to get statistics about papers mentioning specific keywords?
I am currently gathering info about the state of the art of some topic.
What I want to do is to get statistics about how often the topic was mentioned in papers in combination with other keywords in the last couple of years.
Something like this:

Year   "topic keyword1"   "topic keyword2"   "topic keyword3"
2017    81                420                121
2016    76                391                101
2015    64                358                92
...     ...               ...                ...

Is there a place where i can get this kind of information in an "easy to process" format?
(I used ScienceDirect and other databases and copied the information by hand so far but that is not a good solution imho.)
Thanks in advance!

In clinical research you could use pubmed.gov.

@Joe_74 Thanks for the comment. The "Results by year" with "Download CSV" there would be exactly what I´m looking for. But my field is computer science / machine learning.

My field is computer science -- Then you should be able to replace most of that manual labor with code. No?

When I did this, I had to download all the papers in my dataset and use grep.

@JeffE Of course i could write a script that automates the search request on a website and parses the reply but maybe there is already a solution/software/website or at least an API that covers several databases for that.

What about google scholar? You won't get such a nice formated output, but you will get number of hits for each keyword or combination of keywords

If I understand correctly this would be the same kind of thing i did with the databases: Actually searching the combinations i need and copy them per year by hand? Or does google scholar offer another solution to this?

I don't think that there is an easier way to do it unless you find a database that contains this information, offers an API and you write a program to extract the information via the API.

you can also ask you librarian/data management person (not sure about the correct term here), to help you with that, it's their job, and I heard they are good at it. Although you might have to pay


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Why is it important that my master's publications are cited?
While I'm fortunate to have two publications already as a master's student applying for PhD programs, I'm still learning the full impact of research.  Having a strong CV is important, but beyond that, I'm curious what the bigger significance might be.
My supervisor just excitedly messaged me that our paper was cited twice at a conference this week!  I'm happy about it, but I'm also not sure how I should feel. I also don't quite understand why it's such a big deal.
Can you explain why these citations are so important?

because there's no point in doing research if nobody reads it :)

Why do you do research, and why do you write papers? Whats your motivation for doing so? Do you want to make an academic career, or is the PhD just your meal ticket to a nicely paid industry position (nothing wrong with that, btw). Answering that will tell you a lot about your own and possibly others motivations.

Because in general, no one cites master's theses? Most masters theses are honestly not of citation-worth quality, mines included :-) You should be really happy that some people actually considered your master's thesis to be useful, you're doing a great job at the master's level!

You should feel however you feel. That said, citations mean that someone read your work, thought that it was interesting enough to build on or at the least draw attention to. Well done.

For someone at the early career stage, being cited means that your work is having an impact in your field. That in turn is an advantage in seeking your next job. The market is tough in many (most?) fields. Everything positive helps.
For later in your career it probably means less until it comes time for promotion. At some places citations of your research can help in tenure decisions or for later promotions.
Some universities give awards of various kinds to faculty (Professor of the Year). Again, the committees or others giving the awards might look at citations.
Personally, it can just be a warm and fuzzy feeling that what you have done is appreciated and valued by colleagues.
I was actually surprised that my dissertation work was cited as it was so esoteric that only a few people in the world had much interest. Once I was a full professor I never thought about it.

Because you asked for the bigger significance: Science is a collective endeavour to build and improve the house of human knowledge, and publishing a paper is like laying a little Lego brick. Getting cited typically means someone built upon your brick. It's a necessary step for your contribution to become a relevant part of the building, rather than a dead end, which many (most?) of our bricks turn out to be.

Other anwers also missed an important value of citing - it affects your h-index. This index is a metric used to quantitatively compare impact made by researchers, and indirectly can affect your influence in academia or in job search.

The h-index is defined as the maximum value of h such that the given author/journal has published at least h papers that have each been cited at least h times.

So e.g. if you publish 1000 papers with 1 citation, your h-index is 1. If you publish 1 paper with 1000 citations your h-index is still 1. Yet if you publish 50 of papers with atleast 50 citations each, you get score of 50, and you'll be considered a very distinguished researcher
The h-index can be seen for other people on scholar.google.com, e.g. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WLN3QrAAAAAJ&hl=en

While I consider h-index is part of the problem in academia, not the solution, and hope it's use perishes, your answer is arguably the most pragmatic answer to the OP's question.

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Giving up fully-funded phd offers for masters?
I am a senior undergraduate student double majoring in Mechanical Engineering and Mathematics.
My current research interests are in turbulence, dynamical systems, and data-driven methods. This year, I've been applying to some PhD programs both in ME and Applied Mathematics. I do have a few offers that are fully funded and they are relatively good programs (About 40th in ranking). I was hoping that I could maybe get into top 30 but can't complain. Recently, I got offered no funding MS mathematics program at NYU Courant, and I am very much interested in it because given that my research interests lie in applied mathematics, this degree can really help me get into more prestigious phd programs. Any advice on this??
Edit: I know research alignment matters more than ranking. But I did have other labs that are perfectly aligned with my interests but ranked higher than the options I have. Those were actually my top choices as well. So I want to have a second shot at those programs after building a stronger profile.

That really does not sound like a good plan, but it is a personal decision that you have to make. The difference between top 40 and top 30 is ill defined in the first place, and not worth worrying about in the second place.

Being a grad student is hard. Being a grad student without funding is very hard. I had (not a lot of) funding during my master's (because I was international). Multiple times in grad school I ran out of money at the end of the month, and my mental health took a serious tumble. I resorted to peanut butter sandwiches for multiple meals in a row for a few months.

Just to add that, while NYU is a great school, New York is a very expensive city, making it even harder to get along without funding.


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How prevalent are popular criticisms of academia?
I have seen this video by a very popular science communicator (Sabine Hossenfelder) shared around the academic community criticizing aspects of the academic industry and why they left:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKiBlGDfRU8
The main criticisms are:

Corruption in academia (in this case the head of the Institute made a significant amount of money by selling textbooks which his students would write for him)
The pressure institutions place on researchers to bring in grant money, resulting in a paper production machine that burns through students and postdocs and keeping them on temporary contracts and using overhead funds to pay staff
Constant moving and commuting required in academia, which negatively impacts mental health and personal life
The speaker shares their experience of pursuing academic research grants for financial reasons rather than a genuine passion for the project. They admit to lying to themselves and others about their true research interests, which never got done due to the need to focus on funded projects.

How universal are these experiences across academia globally and across fields? Is the academic industry moving away or deeper into these problems? Why do these issues exist in academia? How present/important are these problems in the day-to-day work/life of an academic? What would be the counter points for those who choose to stay in academia as to why it still may be an attractive career option for bright students?

On 2, why would students and postdocs not be on temporary contracts?

@JonCuster because they could be on a permanent contract, moving out of it because of:

progression;
being fired;
I understand that in the logic of "the winner takes it all" this is non-sense. But there are a lot of non-sense things that are the norm (for example: personal health insurance to cover cancer when risk factors are environmental and not personal) that it is not worthwhile to discuss it ...

Dear OP, all good questions. good luck in finding your answers, the community of Academia:SE is a winner community (compulsory reference https://xkcd.com/1827/ ) or even worse of people dreaming to be the "elected" one that will win the professorship in he distant future ;)


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Why would a potential supervisor emphasize kind of doctoral degree?
I was talking to a potential PhD supervisor about doing a "PhD" in his institution (in Germany). In several occasions he mentioned in an "emphasizing manner" that they award "Dr. rer. nat." in contrast to other doctoral degrees (like "Dr. phil." / PhD).
In my environment/institution (also Germany), many have a PhD from universities outside Germany and he is aware of that.
Why would he emphasize that? Are differenct "kinds" of doctoral degrees considered harder to get or more prestigious or something like that?
Note: I had the impression that he was saying "be aware of what you´re getting into, "Dr. rer. nat." is serious business" to exaggerate a little...
The field is CS/maths if that is relevant.

Perhaps some old-fashioned pride in the Latin title? AFAIK, there is no practical difference.

@Walter Could be the reason. See comments of eykanal´s answer.

Whether a German department of mathematics grants the title Dr. rer. nat. or Dr. phil. has nothing to do with the research done in the institute or the difficulty of obtaining the degree, but is the result of some historical happenstance. At most universities departments of mathematics are quite young, and they may be split of an older physics department or a philosophy group, in which case they would have just inherited the naming of the title.
The reputation of Dr. rer. nat. and Dr. phil., as long as they were achieved in the same area, are the same. Dr. Ing. is somewhat different, but not easier. Dr. med. is not taken seriously. There is also the Dr. hum. biol. (human biology), which can be obtained by students of other subjects than medicine, and is on a par with Dr. rer. nat., i.e., a Dr. med. for someone who actually did research.

I'm guessing that he has had a number of candidates who were unclear on that from the outset and that he's simply clarifying to make sure there's no confusion prior to your joining the lab. I don't know whether this is likely to affect your long-term career, hopefully someone who knows more about German academics can clarify in the comments.

Well, some people in the natural sciences consider humanities a soft science. In Germany, this difference is expressed in the title you get. Dr.rer.nat. for natural sciences, Dr.ing. for engineering, Dr.med. for medicine and Dr.phil. for the humanities (I think there are more but these are most common). They should be equally hard to get but ... prejudice. Now some departments, like math and psychology can choose whether to award Dr.rer.nat. or Dr.phil. Medicine can be Dr.med. or Dr.rer.nat. and I don't know whether that makes a difference for approbation but I'd check if that's your field.

@Sumyrda So maybe it is just based on "pride" and him emphasizing it could be meant as advertisement like "join our department, we can award Dr.rer.nat. and that is the best one..."?

@JayFromA That's probably it. Or if he is from a field where different Dr.s are possible, he just wanted to inform you which kind he awards. This can also give a hint on what kind of research is done in that department.

I'm a German natural scientist and I haven't heard of any prejudice towards Ph.D.s. It's pretty much seen as equivalent to the German Dr.(rer.nat., eng., etc.) in my circles (in fact, I would wager that most don't even know what kind of 'Dr.' their colleagues have, as there's a lot of variety among international titles). There definitely is some prejudice against the Dr. med., though.

I'm in CS in Germany, where often, different departments award either Dr. rer. nat. or Dr.-Ing. (one common reason being whether those CS departments evolved out of maths ones or out of engineering ones). While I have never met anyone who claimed to make that distinction themselves, the common rumour appears to be that some industry people allegedly prefer Dr.-Ing. because to them, Dr. rer. nat. is just an ivory-tower-scientist with no practical skills, whereas some research people allegedly prefer Dr. rer. nat. because to them, Dr.-Ing. is just a tinkerer with no real research skills.

It's too short for an answer and should be a comment instead.


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Long delay after article was "Provisionally accepted"
I submitted an article around July last year to a IOPscience journal and after the first round of revisions I sent my response letter and my article with the suggested changes. Then after the second round, in October, the reviewers gave a positive response, recommending the article to publication. I got a "provisionally accepted" letter. I sent all my source files and copyright permissions. But it's been six months and I have no update, I have sent several emails to the editorial team and absolutely no response. I've been "ghosted" and I don't know what to do. I ask for some suggestions, have any of you experienced similar situation?

Not sure how you wrote "emails to the editorial team", but one suspicion is that there may be another email address out there that works better for contacting the relevant persons than the one you actually used. Maybe you haven't been "ghosted", rather the people who could help were not the ones who got your email? Of course also emails end up in spam filters or people have so many emails that they forget about some of them. I do accept though that getting hold of the "right" people is often not easy or even impossible.

What Is "IOPscience journal"? I thought IOPscience is a publisher, not a journal. What is the specific journal you're asking about?

In some fields, there can be a long delay between when the paper is accepted for publication and when it is actually published. For example, I had a paper where I submitted it in 2021, then after a back-and-forth with the referee it was accepted in 2022, but it was not published till 2024 due to the journal backlog. In my field (mathematics), listing a paper as "accepted" on a CV is the same as "published" for all intents and purposes.

I have sent several emails to the editorial team and absolutely no response. I've been "ghosted" and I don't know what to do.

This is a bit unusual. Be careful not to overwhelm them with emails, but it would be nice for you to know if there's anything else they need you to do on your end. I would try my editor first (whoever handled the submission), then the administrative support person (whoever got me to sign the copyright form), then the lead editor, then other editors I know on the editorial board, etc. But, in each case, I'd give a week or two for them to respond. Note that the administrative support person is probably the only one on salary. April is an extremely busy month for academics, so the others might not respond till May.
Another option for you would be to reach out to someone else who published in the same journal, to see if they, too, had a long wait. If they did, at least you know this is normal.


text:
How do I report to Springer a scientific fraud to a cryptographic paper published in Springer?
I was reading a study listed in Springer. The study reviews the literature for solving the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem through index calculus.
But some of the previous works cited seems to not exist. For example:

Takagi [19] introduced index calculus as a method for solving the ECDLP on abelian varieties of small dimensions. Proposed approach solved a system of polynomial equations in many variables by generating a Gröbner basis of a curve associated polynomial ideal. The algorithm’s stages are as follows: First, choose a prime p with a low embedding degree k for the elliptic curve E over Fp. Determining E’s endomorphism ring, which is isomorphic to the maximum order of a quaternion algebra and the Gröbner basis for the ideal of polynomial interactions between E endomorphisms, comes next.
Finally, solve multivariable polynomial problems using linear algebra and the theory of Chinese remainder. The complexity of the method in Fp is sub-exponential in p’s bit length: O(exp(2(2 k/3)) * log(p)(3/2)). As a result, ECDLP security becomes finite field security.

With the quote being:

Takagi T (2009) Index calculus for abelian varieties of small dimension and the elliptic curve
discrete logarithm problem. J Cryptol 22(4):545–572

While a paper with this title exists, it wasn’t published by this author and claims to avoid working in the way described above/in this article.
There are several issues like: papers from real authors working in the field that the authors never wrote. Or even outright technically questionable affirmations like the original Coppersmith’s algorithm can be adapted in an inefficient way to work in elliptic curves. Not to mention peoples who write index calculus algorithms try to avoid using the Chinese Remainder Theorem.
That might had been okay, for a paper performing its own research for developing new algorithms, but the aim of the paper is to perform a review of the existing literature (which in large part don’t exist).
I know Springer is supposed to be a peer reviewed journal, but obviously things were overlooked. I wrote to the authors, but of course they didn't reply. So, how/where should I send my concerns about the trustworthiness of such paper?
Update
Although funny since I’m struggling for My Master degree

Dear Dr. Cellier,
Thank you for contacting Springer Nature.
Please be informed that I have raised your concern to the Editorial Office for further assistance. They will get back to you as soon as they can.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us quoting your Ticket ID [#9406332].
With kind regards,
--
Sophia Punzalan
Journal Support Specialist
Publishing Support
Springer Nature Group
www.springernature.com
--
Visit Springer Nature Support for answers to our most frequently asked questions.
--
Every day around the globe, our imprints, books, journals, platforms and technology solutions reach millions of people – opening the doors to discovery for our communities by enabling them to access, trust and make sense of the latest research, so that they can improve outcomes, make progress, and benefit the generations that follow.

This text looks very weird. Hallucinated citations are a sign that an AI wrote it, but on the other hand the obvious English mistakes are a sign that an AI didn't write it.

I realize this is a fairly technical question where discussion might lead to well-crafted answers -- please use this chat, and not the comments, for such discussion. Comments below this one should suggest improvements to the question or request clarification. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.

Springer is not a journal. Springer is a publisher, with several thousand journals in their portfolio. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springer_Science%2BBusiness_Media

@FedericoPoloni: perhaps they just generated citations by AI and then have rewritten these.

@cag51 does it need to be technical though?

For conference proceedings, it is often fair to assume that they have not been peer reviewed, or the peer review was very superficial. So, without further information about the conference, I would treat them in the same manner as papers on a preprint server.

I assume that this is an article published in a reputable journal. In that case, it doesn't matter who the publisher is - they just provide some infrastructure and tech support and take the money. What matters is the editorial board of the journal itself.
A concern like the one described here should be raised to the editor-in-chief of the journal.
Contacting the publisher would make sense if the problem is with a book, not a journal article; or if an entire disreputable journal is published by a somewhat reputable publisher such as Springer.

I found the paper on-line.  It is (in my opinion) published in a very low quality conference proceedings which nevertheless were published by Springer.  The 68 papers in the book are from a very wide range of topics.  In my opinion the OP should give up and move on, but I agree that addressing the editors of the conference is the thing to do (unless they want to persuade Springer to drop this conference completely).

@HugheyDrambuie this is the practical approach but not being a good scientific citizen. The quality of the venue should not affect OP’s actions.

@AbhishekDivekar I accept this rebuke(!) and accordingly have written myself to a Springer editor that I used to work with.  The OP should write to the volume editors; I don't think it is appropriate for me to name them here but email addresses can be found with a little bit of work.

Disclaimer: I am no expert in cryptography, and cannot assess whether your concerns about the overall quality of the review you are mentioning are valid. However, I can use Google Scholar, and confirm that the only entry titled Index calculus for abelian varieties of small dimension and the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem was neither written by Takagi nor published in J Cryptol.
This being said, I would play the angelic cop and recommend not to see malice where there might simply be an honest error. If you spotted an error, it should be reported. To whom? The angelic cop that I am is going to agree with everyone at the same time, and would recommend to notify everyone (sending an email does not cost a lot of money, and the worst that could happen is you not receiving an answer): this includes the authors, editors, and series editors of the book you were reading. Contacting the mothership (Springer) does not hurt either. The legitimate authors of the wrongly quoted papers might also be interested.
Finally (this is a general comment about scientific fraud and dishonesty, and a simple erroneous quote might not justify this), if you are sure your concerns are serious, valid, and legitimate, you could further escalate them, e.g. by opening a discussion on PubPeer or contacting RW.

https://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/66712358#66712358

"a simple erroneous quote might not justify this" The OP is not complaining about a single isolated problem, but multiple ones: "There are several issues like: papers from real authors working in the field that the authors never wrote. Or even outright technically questionable affirmations ..."

@Neithea a completely mangled references section, whether through natural or artificial stupidity, could attribute articles to the wrong authors and journals. You could probably prove otherwise, or you could start by assuming it was done in error as a precaution

Yeah, uhm, this is very very obviously NOT a case of an innocent mistake. That approach is a valid one UNLESS there is significant evidence otherwise. As is the case here.

You can certainly report it to Springer, but if you feel like joining a particularly lovely community of scholars, you could also drop a comment at PubPeer: https://pubpeer.com/publications/606C31655898F92CB82587EEA8EA91
(I am assuming that the publication you refer to is 10.1007/978-981-99-4626-6_23)
The correct publication with that title is here: https://app.dimensions.ai/details/publication/pub.1047781667

If Springer published the article then you report it to Springer. They have a public face and a contact page linked from springer.com. The editor of the Journal of Cryptology is a known person and easy to find, so you report it to them. Give full details of your concerns.
Tsuyoshi Takagi also has a known email address. Perhaps he can enlighten you.
You suggest you have reported it without result to the authors, so that step is covered.
But note that it is conceivable that there is a simple explanation that might be hard to figure out. An unintentional error by the author, perhaps.

I was able to find where to report scam to Springer. How to submit papers to Springer but not where to report fraud in an Already published article.

I suggest editing this answer. The "Journal of Cryptology" (whose "employees" are experts in the field) is a very different entity from "Springer" (whose employees are people who do publishing work). You are, presumably, saying the OP should report this to the journal, not to Springer.

@AdamPřenosil, both, actually. Springer has responsibility for what they publish as does the specific journal. But, the reference itself might be the error.

@Buffy that s lot of citation that are hallucinated to be not fraud. Also 1987 Coppersmith for elliptic curve. Seriously? Check 10.1007/978-981-99-4626-6_23 doi.

@Buffy At this stage contacting Springer seems like a waste of time. It's not like they are going to form any opinion on this themselves. The important step is to convince the EiC that there is an issue, all other steps are secondary at this stage.

@AdamPřenosil, perhaps, but a senior editor at Springer can light the fire under some person with specific responsibility. Their reputation among scholars is their life-blood.

@Buffy In my experience, communicating with "Springer" these days largely means communicating with an at best semi-competent (but more often that one would imagine, a comically incompetent) employee of some random company where Springer outsources their publishing. It's possible that my negative experiences in this regard are an outlier – but it's also possible that your positive experiences no longer reflect the current reality of communicating with "Springer".

(I did not downvote the answer.)

Seconding @AdamPřenosil's comment about the tarnished knight


text:
Got roped into (what I’m pretty sure is) a scam conference. What now?
I got roped into what might be a scam conference, called the “International Conference of the Humanities” (name slightly changed for anonymity’s sake) On the website they’ve published the previous year’s presenters and paper titles and lots of photos. Promising, but it all feels slightly off. The fee is $400 and the university I’m doing my PhD in has subsidized my fees, flight, and accommodation. I’ve already paid for everything.
Since it’s a famous city and during the summer, I don’t mind as I’ll take advantage and have a short vacation there with my savings. But I’m willing to cancel going to the conference and fight for a refund. I’m afraid of my work being plagiarized if I do publish it in the proceedings of the conference, as they’ve promised to do. (The concern with plagiarism comes from my underlying assumption that a scummy conference is more likely to act unethically.) Should I go and just not publish in the proceedings? I want to cancel going but I’m afraid the university won't reimburse me then for the trip.

In my field a fee of $400 is for sure not unheard of, and of course I can't know how broad "literally everything" actually is. If it's just one field, say chemistry, it doesn't necessarily indicate a scam. How sure are you that this is actually a scam, and on what basis?

I don't know for sure, but I believe many of these may actually be at best "half scams" in the sense that somebody makes a lot of money not doing that much for it, however the actual conference may happen (i.e., organisers have at least organised something) including serious and proper scientific exchange among those who come, if probably not at a really high level.

@ChristianHennig Hi! Thank you for your follow-up question / comments. I’ll try to address them all.
It might certainly be the case of it being more a scummy conference than scam. I’ll write some details below, while keeping myself anonymous. (I’ve seen scummy conference organizers reply angrily to some forum complaints about them!)
-the conference is titled “International Conference of the Humanities” -there are several conferences being organized by the same company under slightly different names, and all in big, important cities -the website has no information on who’s presenting

If you go, afterwards please write about it here. I'm curious. Personally I wouldn't worry about plagiarism that much by the way (this is a much worse way to make much money with little effort than charging a too high fee). But then I'm not speaking from experience.

Can you find publications from previous conferences of them on the web, or even cited? You may well be right, but in that situation researching previous conferences by the same organisers may give you more information.

@ChristianHennig Hahah bet, I’ll update the thread with all the  details if I end up deciding to go.   But yeah, there are definitely easier, less elaborate ways of scamming people than this! (Or are there??) Anyways, just prayinggg they don’t take my research and run with it. I’m not sure how common it is but I’m still anxious about it.

@ChristianHennig Sorry, missed your previous comment! On the website they’ve published previous year’s presenters and paper titles. Also lots of photos. Promising, but it all feels slightly off

OK but you could look for traces of their publications, also elsewhere.

If it is a scam, then the conference may not actually exist - you might show up and find bewildered / annoyed hotel staff.

Where is your advisor during all these? Did you not ask him/her about the conference first?

@DanielHatton I think the concern is that the work will enter an ecosystem of academic dishonesty and become more likely to be plagiarized - that someone running or attending a scam conference would have no qualms about stealing work that was submitted to it. I agree the risk is limited, though, as most of the eyes on the work will be from the other conference attendees, who are probably as innocent as the OP.

Here's an account of what may be waiting for you: https://www.technologynetworks.com/tn/articles/inside-a-fake-conference-a-journey-into-predatory-science-321619 (in short, probably a "real" conference, but an incredibly messy and uninstructive one)

The link also discusses the real concerns of having engaged with a spam conference: not so much plagiarism (the figures behind that model don't care to publish papers themselves), but you'll drown in spam invites for the foreseeable future since you have proven a soft target (sorry).

You can be plagiarized even if you never attend a scam conference
The two concepts (plagiarism & scam conferences) are unrelated. This is because plagiarism is taking someone else's work and presenting it as your own, and once you make your work public - which is a necessary part of academia - then someone can plagiarize you.
If you're very concerned, be sure to timestamp your work, e.g. by uploading it to some preprint server (because the scam conference's website might not be around for very long, its timestamp might not be available should you need it).

Do you have a supervisor?
Have you discussed this with them or someone else at the university?
Surely in the long run it's better to err on the side of being totally honest with them and explaining your concerns and the situation. Even if you are going to go ahead with your travel to said city if you are sure the conference is a scam, then surely it's better to inform the university given that they (presumably your supervisor?) are paying.
I know you didn't list the above as your biggest concern, but also in view of what you say is your biggest concern (the risk of being plagiarized), I think you'd be better of taking the university in the loop. Were you sole author on the work you submitted? If not, other people's reputation is on the line as well, so you'd want to inform them as well.
If I were you I would seek some senior advise before you do anything else.

Thanks for your response!
All totally valid concerns. I’m the sole author, and it’s my university department + graduate school of arts and sciences that are paying—not advisor/supervisor.
I had to send my advisor / uni department all of the materials the conference has sent me—the advisor approved of it all, and didn’t raise any red flags with me.
I totally agree about erring on the overly communicative side. I’ll ask her directly what she thinks of the conference, see what she says, and work from there.
Thanks again, I hope it all works out somehow…

These conferences usually do take place. The work presented there might not be of great quality, and the sessions may be too broad, so you will not get such a relevant audience, but they usually do the conferencing they promise. They usually are not real scams, but rather low-quality and low-prestige money mills. I would not worry too much about presenting there and having a short paper in the proceedings. It may not bring you too many achievement points, it should not do a real harm either, especially at an early stage of the scientific career.
The risk of being plagiarized appears whenever you publish something. I do not think publishing at a low-tier conference raises the risk too much. You certainly should save your best results for good journal papers, if journal papers are the expected way of publishing in your subject. Still, you can show intermediate results or less important results at various conferences — sometimes more prestigious, sometimes less so.
If you think the conference is a complete scam and nothing happens, then that would be a fraud. The university's legal division would have to decide how to act, given that the university paid for the expenses and should get your conference for their money from the organizing company.

I know some people asked me to update the post once I went.
It was in the conference room lobby of a very fancy hotel. I signed in, and they gave me a name badge and I went inside…it was pretty much empty by the time the conference started. A woman (the organizer?) took pictures the WHOLE time of the five people who were. From her angles, it seemed she was trying to make it seem the room was packed for the pictures they sent later. Some people came, presented, and left as soon as they did.
The actual presenters had NOTHING to do with my field. Absolutely no questions were asked. The organizer didn’t care either, she was eager to move on to the next person and the conference SPED through. There was no end-of-conference discussion nor summary by the organizers. Just a goodbye and all were ushered to the lobby cafe. They did provide food, but none of it was halal nor kosher despite the demographic of most of the attendees. They gave us a participation certificate, lol. It felt super, well, superficial.
They also said we’d be published in several journals, but that was pretty much a lie. We were "published"...on their website.
TLDR
All in all, the conference sucked, but it WAS legit, at least.

That sounds very much like a predatory meeting - see eg. this Nature feature.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02358-w
Happens to the best of us.
FWIW, I would not bother about publishing in their proceedings if you've got other options (depends on your field, of course). The 5 people in attendance will presumably not scoop you, and why waste your nice work on a platform with negligible impact and give them legitimacy?

I plan on submitting work for a prize and have the same concerns, but first, regarding the conference, go and as you said have fun whether you enjoy the conference or not, you will enjoy the trip.  And look at it this way, you are publishing a paper and going so technically it is an actual academic conference if you go.  Maybe only one other person goes and you become great friends, you can never predict the future.
Now to protect your copyright, copyright in the sense of simply proving that you are the original author, the only real way to do this is to publish the paper ahead of time.  I started a short list of places that you can submit your paper to for free and that have open access, meaning you can add it without a review process, etc.
As the first link below says on their site - "Scholars can post their early research, collaborate on theories and discoveries, and get credit for their ideas before peer-reviewed publication."
These are all of the links I have saved for open access journals and sites so far, there are many more out there but these seemed to be the more established sites from what I found in my brief search (Google Scholar also lets you track citations to your work):
SSRN Preprint Services: https://www.elsevier.com/products/ssrn-preprint-services
ARXIV Scholarly Papers: https://arxiv.org
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com
Springer Open Access: https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-research/about/the-fundamentals-of-open-access-and-open-research
Springer: https://link.springer.com
List of Open Access Publications: https://www.sciencedirect.com/browse/journals-and-books?accessType=openAccess
ScienceDirect: https://www.sciencedirect.com
Have a good time!

I wouldn't worry about it too much. There are many low quality conferences laying around. As long as you have an audience to present and a proceedings to have your paper in you are mostly fine. Just don't expect people to point at you and say you have attended that conference.
Just make sure you have all your documentation in case you show up and there is no conference. But the chance of that happening is very slim.
Also, whenever there is something off, first think of incompetence, not dishonesty. I lost count on how many times I forgot to open a place for students to upload their home works and I had to change the deadline due to that. This happens more if your conference indeed in humanities.
Here is an example: the conference I will soon be joining is a more prestigious one than most, but there were so many red flags in their site. This could have thrown me off if I didn't already know the conference. I am certain someone was too busy to update it on time or properly.


text:
How beneficial is teaching prior to PhD?
I have recently finished my MS in biology and will be beginning in a PhD program this upcoming semester. I was recently offered an adjunct position at a community college to teach a summer course. It is an 8-week course requiring 8 contact hours per week (4 lecture and 4 lab). I have read/been informed that it is reasonable to expect 2-4 hours of prep work per hour of class time, considering the course is slightly outside of my area of focus and it would be my first-time teaching (outside of guest lecturing and tutoring). When accounting for the time needed to grade, respond to emails, etc., I am worried this single course could turn into a full time obligation (i.e., ~40 hours a week).
I am already working part-time as a research assistant for the university and am working on drafting a manuscript from my thesis work to submit for publication at the end of this summer. I would also like to spend some time with friends and family prior to starting my PhD, as I will be moving ~7000 km.
In the past, I have been advised by professors/researchers to make sure I don't take on too much simultaneously and to rather focus on the top few priorities. I have a tendency to spread myself a bit thin at times.
I am worried that by accepting this position I might be doing just that. I don't want to begin my PhD feeling like I have already been burning myself on both ends for 2-months prior. However, I am equally worried that by turning down the position I will be missing out on 1) an opportunity to grow as an academic by learning and teaching a course in my field that is outside of my usual comfort zone and 2) a strong CV builder.
My questions are:
-Is it reasonable to expect a demanding course to take 2-4 hours of prep time per 1 hour of class/lab time for a first-time instructor?
-Would passing on such an opportunity likely limit my growth as an academic/student or job prospects following the completion of my graduate studies?
-How much teaching experience will be expected upon completion of my PhD (or how much would 'extra' teaching stand out)? In other words, is this such a good opportunity that I would be 'silly' for letting it pass?
(For more context, I am interested in a career in research and plan to apply to R1 or R2 universities but would like to keep the option to work for other types of universities open. I will be a TA for at least 1 year during my PhD.)

Please limit you inquiry to one question per post, otherwise it might get closed due to not being focused enough.

Unless you really need the extra money, to me teaching this course on top of everything else you'll be doing this summer sounds like too much for only teaching one course for one summer session. Missing from the information you provided is how much teaching you can reasonably expect to do in your Ph.D. program. In my field and in the U.S. most students will teach several courses before finishing their Ph.D., and so one additional course (especially a summer school course, which probably ranks lower for experience than an academic year course) would not provide much of an additional advantage.

I have a tendency to spread myself a bit thin at times....I am worried that by accepting this position I might be doing just that.

Most definitely. You are considering:

Teaching a course outside of your expertise for the first time. Preparing the lectures alone will easily take 20+ hrs/week. Hopefully the labs are already planned and you can use an online (auto-graded) homework system; otherwise, those activities will also take a lot of time. You are right to suspect this could be a full-time job in itself.
Working as an RA -- presumably at least 20 hrs/week, otherwise it's not really worth doing
Preparing a manuscript based on your thesis work -- presumably at least 10 hrs/week

I recommend that you choose either the teaching or the research, not both. It is true that research is more important than teaching generally, but frankly you are 5+ years pre-PhD, so I think this choice will have little effect on your long-term career. So, I would choose whichever one you are more excited about.

This type of teaching experience is not very useful to your CV, I think, even at teaching-focused institutions down the road. If you'd like to pivot towards teaching experience during your PhD, there should be some opportunity past the one year of TAing.
If you want to be competitive for R1/R2 tenure track jobs down the line, then (1) They will almost exclusively care about research and (2) You will almost certainly also have to do a postdoc after your PhD. So there is even more time on the back end to pivot towards teaching if that's what you decide to do.
You shouldn't make lists of questions, but they are short. To the less important ones:

2:1 prep:lecture ratio is on the short side for new classes in my experience, even for reasonably experienced people. That's especially true if you don't have a syllabus, lesson plans, or other materials available already. 3:1-4:1 sounds plausible, you'd probably be on the longer end if you're totally new.
Teaching expectations vary by job type, but... frankly, for R1/R2 tenure-track jobs in STEM, I think they barely matter at all. That's from experience at department meetings discussing hiring. Keeping a research program going and getting grant money is considered substantially harder than becoming an adequate teacher.


text:
Not getting an interview due to institution's fault
I applied for PhD in March using my exam scores. In April the university announced that they would interview candidates whose scores were above a certain threshold. They did send an interview call letter to those eligible candidates. My scores were a little below the threshold, so I accepted my fate.
Today I visited their website for some other reasons and I learned that they lowered the thresholds such that I would now qualify. However, they didn't contact the newly-eligible applicants, they just wrote that newly-eligible applicants may contact them within a week. I didn't see the notice and missed the deadline.
I feel very much unhappy by this. My scores were written in my original application. So when they published a revised cut off list, is it not their duty to check who are now eligible for interviews and send them the interview call letters?
Some of my friends are now telling me that I should've checked their website regularly. But again they (the authority) didn't send any mail stating that they have published a revised cut off list. So there was no reason for me to check the website again and hope that something would change magically!
The admission process of this season is over. What should I do now? Should I mail them asking for an interview?

You might write, explaining the situation, concisely, as you see it, and request an interview. ‘Betrayed’ and ‘demanding’ suggest to me there might be other things in your life to come to terms with.

What country? Did they say exams scores were the only criterion?

Thanks for the comments. There were some minimum eligibility criteria (e.g having certain gpa or higher in last degree) which my application satisfies. Other than that, the only criteria was to satisfy any of those exam scores.

Why do you expect them to actively contact newly eligible applicants? Did they original contact all eligible potential applicants personally?

@VolkerSiegel Yes, they did send the interview call letters to all the original eligible candidates. I mentioned this in my original post. Seems like this point is not clear in the edited post.

Unfortunately, whether it's their fault or not, it's your problem. That's unsatisfactory but it won't be the last time something like that happens to you. If that helps, it happens to everyone once in a while.

@Aruralreader Thanks for the comment. I wrote this post in a somewhat enraged mode. Now after some reflections, I understand that I should not have used words like betray and demand. I have changed those words.

@SoumikMukherjee I see - that's unusual. I would propose the following way to see it: They do not have a perfect application process - but it is much better than usual - they even send individual interview call letters. But it did not really work out, and they needed to make a change. Now somebody had to fix the problem, and did that in the "normal way" - without the individual mails. It makes sense that you may have expected the mails, but I would not really blame them that they just solved the problem, instead of trying to solve it perfectly.

I think there is no harm to contact them, saying that you missed the deadline but you are very interested to the program. Chance is not high, but no harm to try.

Just don't complain or accuse. That would be counterproductive.

@Buffy Thanks, do you think stating my unhappiness can sound like complain or accuse?

@SoumikMukherjee: Yes, definitely. Remember that (a) dealing with complaints and with unhappy people is uncomfortable for most people and (b) they are under no legal obligation to help you. Thus, if your mail makes them uncomfortable, the easiest solution for them will be to "play by the rules" and deny your request. You're asking a stranger for a favor. You want them to fell good about helping you, and you want them to look forward to interacting with you, not dread that interaction.

@SoumikMukherjee Don't state your unhappiness. See this interview as a privilege, not as a right.

You missed your application for a technical reason you can explain. That you are unhappy about it is your personal problem. They did not trick you, they just had a less than perfect application process. They know that, you do not need to explain it to them. Just as they will not blame you for not checking their website. You just want to find out whether they are interested in interviewing you.

They had your contact info, knew you applied, and know what their standards are.  My assumption would be that if they wanted to interview you, they would have contacted you about it.  I have never seen an interview process in which you have to figure out if you meet their requirements and contact a school to schedule an interview.

Agreed; It sounds a bit like they maybe wanted to take someone who didn't meet the original cutoff but was strong in other areas, and to be fair they 'opened' the interview process to more people but never would have actually expected to take on OP. So, in other words, I doubt they really missed out, they just weren't selected for interview.

@BryanKrause Yup -- also doesn't rule out the possibility that the school won't eventually reach out, but it's pretty late for that, at least in the Northern Hemisphere school year.


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I didn't make it into a graduate program last year. How can I make a compelling case with an unchanged profile?
I graduated this May with a bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics. I had hoped to pursue a Ph.D. in physics, but was rejected by all of the 20 or so programs to which I applied.  I’m planning to try again this cycle, and with application season around the corner I’m starting to put together my application materials, source references, and update my CV. Regrettably, however, I face what I perceive to be a pretty serious issue: nothing meaningful has changed in the last year, and I haven't the faintest idea what went wrong last time.

Background
I learned of my last rejection around early April of this year, and I had originally hoped to spend the intervening months conducting research of some sort, working at some relevant job or internship, or completing a project in my personal time so as to strengthen my application. Sadly, for a number of reasons I've been unable to do any of this.
I've reached out to admissions committee members at a handful of the schools to which I applied to request feedback on my application and/or tips on how to strengthen my application in the future. Few responded, and those that did simply pointed to generic tips located on their department websites (which isn't terribly surprising, I do understand that these people are both quite busy and probably inundated with email). I've also spoken with faculty at my institution, as well as faculty at other schools that I know through being involved at research. Five looked over my application materials (CV and essays), and had little input, except to express surprise that I've had no luck with either graduate school applications or the job market. I've also visited my school's career center, which provided only minor feedback (input on things like font sizes in my CV, and nothing notable about its content or overall presentation), and tried online resume review services.

Question
I'm aware that it isn't possible for you all to diagnose what did or did not go wrong with last year's applications, nor would it be appropriate to ask you to do so. My question, then, is: what can I do to address the fact that nothing has changed with respect to my accomplishments or experience over the last year, and how can I present a more compelling case for myself in spite of that?
Thanks in advance for your input. I've already bugged most of my contacts some months ago, and would feel bad about returning to them with many of the same questions and no news or progress of my own to share.

A few more details might be of help.  In particular, are you considered a domestic or a foreign applicant?  Are you entitled to attend school without a visa?  If so, are you a citizen of a country for which getting a visa might be an issue?

@ScottSeidman Thanks for the questions. I am a U.S. citizen/domestic applicant.

Do you have any idea about what sort of letters of recommendation you are getting? That is a really big factor.

This is far too long and too specific to you personally. VTC.

@AzorAhai-him- My apologies. Perhaps you could suggest how I might edit this so as to make it sufficiently unspecific?

Did you make it to a formal interview stage with any of the programs you applied to?

@IntegerEuler Edit it to the outcomes that matter. We don't need a paragraph detailing that you couldn't find a research position: "I wasn't able to get a position doing research, right now I'm working in fast food" is really all we need from that para (i.e., truly your CV isn't changing) ... for example

@BryanKrause Unfortunately I did not make it to the formal interview stage for any of them.

@AzorAhai-him- Done. My apologies again, I had included this only as when I've asked similar questions elsewhere it typically devolved to people asking me questions about these sorts of details, and I wanted to avoid that by addressing it early.

@IntegerEuler I think it's OK to iterate based on comments as people add them; but enormous walls of text that scroll of my browser tend to get fewer answers.

and had little input, except to express surprise that I've had no luck with either graduate school applications or the job market

The job market is, I'm told, pretty terrible right now, so I'm not so surprised that you've had little luck on the job market. And graduate admissions always becomes more challenging in years when the job market is rough. Even so, I'm also very surprised that you didn't get into any of the schools you list with the profile you provided.

what can I do to address the fact that nothing has changed with respect to my accomplishments or experience over the last year, and how can I present a more compelling case for myself in spite of that?

As in this canonical question, this seems like a case where honesty is called for. Tell a shorter version of the story you told above. It seems like you applied to a reasonable list of schools, so they will hopefully share your surprise that you didn't get in anywhere. And it's totally understandable that you have not made much progress over the past year when you have to work 55-60 hours per week to support yourself. If you can add any comments about how you have been trying to avoid forgetting material or letting your problem-solving skills atrophy, so much the better. Your resilience is admirable.

Since your CV hasn't changed, I can only suggest that you pay a visit, in person if possible, to your letter writers and let them know details of your experience, including the feedback you have received. Your application seems strong in my reading, so I'm surprised.
Did you choose the right letter writers? Do they know you well and support you strongly? Can and will they make an honest positive prediction about your likelihood of success in doctoral study and beyond?
If you have the correct writers then you don't want them to start to forget you. Make contact.
The other factor might be your Statement of Purpose. Make sure it focuses on the future, not a rehash of your CV. Don't use it to make excuses for shortcomings of any sort. Make it somewhat specific if possible in research area, but keep it flexible. If you insist too strongly on too narrow a field then there can be problems of matching your needs to theirs. But an idea of a subfield is good to express.

Agreed, I often see statements of purpose that show a lack of understanding of what graduate school is: they talk about their love of learning, passions, excitement about teaching … not enough hard headed, clear, and direct discussion about research directions and experiences.

I would hazard a guess that the SOP may have been lacking. If the student is borderline, they typically fall into a large group of "admit if possible" and then we have to sift through them. In all honesty, most graduate admissions letters of support are generic and fairly positive. A very confused/hyperfocused/or poorly written SOP often makes us pick one candidate over the other. For instance, if they are hyper-focused on an area which we know we cannot currently accommodate, or if they clearly lack maturity and are telling us about their hopes and aspirations as a young child...etc...

Thanks a ton for your suggestions. I felt pretty confident that my letters were strong. Two were from faculty I had worked with very closely while involved in research, and one was from a prof. with whom I'd taken several of my physics classes. All seemed pretty enthusiastic, and I'm familiar with their writing. I'm planning to ask the first two to write letters again, and "replace" the latter with another prof. with whom I've worked with on research projects (in part because they offered, and in part because they can speak more directly to my ability to conduct research than the other prof.).

With regards to my SOP, I broke it down into: a brief introduction ("I'm X, I studied at Y, I have Z years of research experience in subfields A & B, I want to attend graduate school because I want a career in research"), a paragraph discussing my research experience (in an attempt to avoid regurgitating my CV, I discussed 2 significant projects, my contributions, and how those experiences lead me to want to do research), and a conclusion which stated my interest in working in a similar subfield & that their department would be great for _ reasons (e.g. specific faculty, or a laboratory, etc).

That seems problematic. Too much about the past and too little about goals, both for grad school and for the career. A bit too much "why" and not enough "what". "Career in research" is not strong. Maybe those projects should be mentioned in the CV.

Are your letter writers experienced at that? Are they native English speakers?

@Buffy Got it, thanks again for your input, it is genuinely very helpful. I'll keep that in mind while rewriting my SOPs. Two of my previous letter writers are experienced and speak English natively, while one is a new-ish faculty member who does not speak English natively (although I wouldn't necessarily have known had he not mentioned it). I've asked the former two to write again this year, and I'm planning to replace the latter with a more experienced faculty member (who also happens to speak English natively).

@Buffy: I've always wondered what you expect writers to put in an SoP if they're not allowed to talk about the past. I agree the SoP shouldn't just summarize the CV, but 500+ words of "My goal is to study X field and become a professor" is not very interesting. But talking about past experiences, what you learned, what you enjoyed, what you want to avoid, even what mistakes you made and learned from -- that's an interesting and more convincing way to motivate your future plans.

@cag51, maybe meta would be a good place to discuss a canonical answer for this. Many questions here suggest that SoP isn't understood to be about "Purpose". But a short answer is that the "what you plan" should be emphasized over the "why". And weasel words like "research" aren't strong enough to convince anyone.

@Buffy In place of "research", what would you suggest? As of now, my long-term goal is to end up working at an academic institution where I can continue to be involved in research similar to that which I've been involved in as an undergraduate (academic as opposed to industry for a variety of reasons, including that one cannot continue to study the sorts of subfields I'm currently most interested in in industry). I'm aware that accomplishing this will be quite difficult, but that is the dream.

I guess, should I say something like "I want to be a research scientist/research professor/etc. at a university doing X" as opposed to "I want to pursue a career in research"? Assuming the latter to more or less imply the former, I typically just write the latter in the interest of brevity. But perhaps that sounds less compelling.

The academia vs industry dichotomy you present completely ignore the numerous US national laboratories. Mine alone employs thousands of STEM PhDs doing any number of things.

@JonCuster ? Do people who work at national labs not consider themselves "in academia"?

@AzorAhai-him- - well, kind of sort of. I hang out here, but often to add that 3rd perspective. The general experience is quite different and often not well understood by students.

@JonCuster As with Azor Ahai -him-, by academia I mean also national labs (although I recognize there are some differences). I would of course happily take a research position at a national lab (or at least that is where I imagine my mind being in 5 to 7 years). I admittedly don’t know much about the experience at a national lab however.


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Author attribution for books used in promotional video?
I work at a University Library in Canada, we've recently produced a promotional video for a book scanner. In the video, we demonstrate the use of the book scanner using a random book off the shelf, but the focus is always on the scanner, never on the pages of the book (though there are some shots where you can see pictures, and at least one where you can read a title on the page). One of the Librarians is under the impression that we need to cite the book and give attribution to the author. Originally we thought we could probably pass this off as incidental use, but according to the Librarian it's not, because we deliberately used that book as a prop. I've never heard of attribution being given to authors of books used as props, is this really necessary?

@Wrzlprmft - As jakebeal notes in his answer the author made no contribution to the video, I could have just as easily used Curious George for my choice of book, the author had no bearing whatsoever on our book selection.

So I actually emailed my question to Michael Geist, who is a professor of law and happens to be one of the foremost experts in Canadian copyright... in the whole world. He was gracious enough to reply:

"No.  That sounds de minimis to me and does not require permission or
  attribution."

So the answer is no, they don't need attribution.

I am not a lawyer and not familiar with Canadian copyright law, but here are some thoughts that should apply to any reasonable copyright law, might be convincing even without citing a law or that might help you on your research:

Just attributing the author should not pose any legal benefit unless for works is published under some licence (such as some Creative Commons licences) that especially requires it. So, if you actually have a copyright issue here, attributing won’t help unless the book is under such a licence.
Copyright protects creators (and copyright holders in general) only from certain things, most importantly the unwanted reproduction of their intellectual content. I find it questionable that what you did falls in any way under something that copyright law protects anybody from. For more detail, have a look at the law itself (in particular here and here).
What you did might fall under fair dealing. If I understood it correctly, you are not showing more of the book than, e.g., is permittable for the purpose of review. However, the situation is a little bit different as you are not reviewing the book.
If I understood it correctly, there is little difference between what you did and, e.g., any documentary where somebody is interviewed in an office surrounded by hundreds of books, maybe some of them lieing plainly on the table, so you can see the cover. If legal issues were involved in making such films, people would be interviewed in plain boring rooms much more often.
You are probably seeing more intellectual content of whoever designed the cover of the book and made those images than the author of the book (though this might be the author). So why attribute the author?

Finally, from the ethical point of view, I do not see any problem: The author of the book did not intelectually contribute to your video in any way. The author is not harmed by what you are doing. If at all, there is a slight benefit as you are providing free advertisement.

I cannot imagine it being necessary or even appropriate to cite the book.
Citation is used to acknowledge the intellectual contribution of an author.
No aspect of that intellectual contribution was implicated in any way in your choice of that book over any other book in the library: that book could have been replaced with literally any other book, with not the slightest difference in the intellectual content of your video.

Right!? Those are my thoughts exactly, but unfortunately for me I'm dealing with a Librarian so I'm going to have to probably prove that to her citing Canadian copyright law.

@ShemSeger I doubt you'll find any of us random strangers on the internet who can speak with legal authority to your colleague.  Maybe you need to actually consult a lawyer?  The university should have some on staff...

The sad thing is you're probably right about the lawyer. From what I'm told, pretty much everything official about fairdealing comes from court cases right now...


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How to handle conflicting formatting instructions and issues with technical checks during submission
I'm getting frustrated with the handling of an article of mine that is currently under review and I'm looking for advice. For context -  I submitted a paper 4-5 months ago to a decent journal managed by a major publisher. That is to say I would not expect issues of this nature, though I have never submitted to this journal before. I submitted the manuscript using the journal's LaTeX template and followed the journal's submission instructions carefully as I like to minimize going back-and-forth over minor formatting mistakes.
The trouble started at the initial technical check. I received a relatively long list of changes that were confusing and contradictory. They claimed I had submitted files incorrectly, that they could not access certain things, and requested nonsensical changes. Without going into excessive detail, suffice it to say my submission had no real issues. They also requested inclusion of several things that were already clearly in the paper i.e. a data availability statement, figure captions, an author contribution statement. In short, the editorial assistant (or whoever does the initial check) seemed to not understand the LaTeX format or have even looked at the manuscript closely. I assumed that they were just not used to receiving submissions in LaTeX (despite allowing for it) as it is not super common in my field. After some emailing and explanation, the person doing the technical check mostly figured it out, I made some minor changes, and the paper passed on to an editor, then to reviewers, and then back to me for revision. I recently finished the revisions + response and resubmitted.
This brings us to present day. I am again having issues with the technical check (despite the fact that NO format/filetype changes were made during the revision process). This time a different editorial assistant has requested 2 very specific and very frustrating changes. One would require fiddling with the supplied LaTeX template to achieve a minor "fix" that is integral to their "preferred" template. Now I understand that templates are not perfect and are supplied by the larger publisher, but this is still extremely frustrating. I am concerned that messing the the template would be hours of my time. I have modified others' templates before and it can be a minefield.
Additionally, they requested the file format of my figures be changed from EPS. The person performing the check claims that the .eps format cannot be opened. This is untrue obviously. I have also confirmed that the files open just fine in Illustrator and Inkscape. The format I submitted in is literally the first format recommended in their submission instructions, was acceptable for the first technical check, and is a common format.
I'm at a loss. EPS is (while not absolutely required) the best format for the figures, they are vector images which can be resized as needed without reducing resolution. It would take time to change all of my figures and it seems unnecessary - I am following their exact instructions. As for the LaTeX template, it would be a huge hassle for me to dig through their code to make some very specific formatting changes (to be clear, this is not a simple fix in the .tex file - I need to go into the .cls file and search around). I want to stress that the paper already passed the technical checks and no formatting changes were made since then. At some point, I would expect extremely minor, technical details to be handled by the publisher upon acceptance.
I guess I have a couple questions. Is this situation as unreasonable as I think? I have not encountered this before (to this degree) and I am frustrated by the delays and the time it is taking to address this. I feel that there is an element of incompetence (or at least technical illiteracy). Whether or not it's unreasonable, should I attempt to make these changes or should I contact the journal/editor directly? I initially explained the above and the editorial assistant replied with an email just restating their request. I responded again in more depth with the above argument (albeit more concisely and professionally) and am waiting on a response. I would appreciate any advice on this matter.
TLDR: Twice now I have received requests for formatting changes that contradict the submission guidelines and imply a level of technical illiteracy on the part of the editorial assistants. I am extremely frustrated by the time and effort this is taking to resolve. I want to know if this is normal (maybe I have just been lucky to avoid this in the past) and whether or not this warrants escalation. If it does, who would I even contact?

Springer-Nature? Their quality checks have certainly left me frustrated before, and I am in a field where TeX is standard. The issue with the figures doesn't seem too bad though; you should be able to convert them to PDF and keep their vector nature.

Yes Springer-Nature. I agree changing the figures is not a huge deal. I admit that I just don't want to change them at this point - why should I? They "accept" EPS and the figures already passed the technical check without issue.

I find it just as frustrating as you. But this is what happens when one deals with companies that provide a very crappy product and know they can get away with it. That's the fundamental problem. Only way out of this is trying to find a different publisher who cares about authors and science. For the publisher annoying work that you do is much cheaper than work that they do (or god forbid, update their work flow...). In this particular case I would try to escalate and indicate that you're not gonna do the work and that they need to figure out a solution. The cost is that it will delay things.


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Letter of reference without referee email and phone
My university has shifted to a new location. I have a letter of recommendation in hardcopy form on old letterhead (i.e., with the old campus address) but with the current date. Moreover, my letter of recommendation does not have the referee's email and phone. The website is present on the letter but the university website also does not have the same email address from which my referee has sent an electronic email to my supervisor in their university abroad.
Is it necessary to have the contact details of the referee in the letter of recommendation? Can it affect my opportunity negatively?

People reviewing your application will want to be able to get in touch with your referee, one way or another (among other things, they may wish to request a copy of the recommendation directly from the referee rather than from you).
Normally, this is indeed included in the letter. If, as in your case, the letter of reference does not include this information (or the information is obsolete), there are two other simple places to include the correct information:

Some positions have a form for entering referee information.  In this case, you can enter all of the necessary contact information in that location, and possibly also a note on the change of location.
Your cover letter is the ultimate "exception handling" location; you can easily include a post-script with a note about the changed location and contact information.

Bottom line: while it's better to have the contact information correct in the letter, there are other simple ways to provide such information, and as long as it's easy to access and to understand what's going on, any reasonable hiring committee will not hold it against you.