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Graduate early with average GPA, or later with better GPA?
I've seen similar questions here, and I wish there was a narrower tag than the broad soft-question and career-development.
I am currently a freshman/sophomore-to-be at a top ten math program in US. My major GPA is around 3.5-3.6, and so is my overall GPA. Due to fast progress in my courses (skipped all lower divs) I will be ready to graduate in a year or year and a half. The question is whether I should do that.
I do not see myself outside of academia, and dead-set on pursuing PhD in math. With my GPA far from being stellar, I was going to take more grad courses to improve the situation. The college is quite pricey, with me being an out-of-state, and so I am not really sure whether I should just graduate and take those courses back home (or apply for masters).
Recap: is it better to graduate early, with an average GPA and no hooks (e.g., research, high Putnam grade, no grad courses), apply for Masters program and save money, or graduate later and improve my record as an undergrad?

How good is your relationship with your professors? (I mean: how good will their recommendation letters be?)

Only 2 courses I've taken were taught by professors. I am really trying to seek attention of one very influential number theorist, and I do not think it's worked so far.

One option is to do a masters, then apply again, and try to go to a stronger school for a PhD.  In this case, however, I recommend that when you go for your masters you actually apply for their PhD program (as oftentimes masters students are treated a bit like second-class citizens, e.g., much less likely to get funding).  And who knows, you may love the school, and stay there for your PhD after all.

@mixedmath Too much of a giveaway. I wouldn't want a professor to think that I'm after him just because of the recommendation letters.

@user22835: Speaking as a professor: Why not?

Have you looked into establishing residency in the state?  I think the difficulty of this task varies substantially from one state to another, but it may be worth looking into.

It is extremely difficult to establish residency in California.

Your answer will depend partly on what you want to do in academia.  If you want to teach, but don't really want to emphasize research much, you might do fine to graduate now.  However, if your goal is to become a professor at a research intensive school, then you really should go to the strongest grad school you can get into.  (Based on your description, I strongly suspect that if you bust your butt for another year or two, in particular working to earn one or two strong letters of rec, you could get into a better grad school than you can currently.)
Yes, I know there are considerations about who you will work with, perhaps geography, potential two-body problems, etc.  So, why's it so important to go to the best school you can?  Again and again I see that in academia (as everywhere) networking is crucial.  Generalizing and stereotyping a bit: the best schools have the best researchers, who know the other best researchers, who have the biggest grants, which fund the nicest postdocs, etc. If you want to thrive as a researcher, you will do well to get into that network.  (To a large extent, it's a rich get richer system.)  As an undergrad or early grad student, one way you can get into that network is to work with a professor who is a central part of it, and is willing to weave you in.  And your chances of working with said professor typically go up with the reputation of the school.
Now a personal digression.  Through high school and undergrad I was in a hurry to get to the next level as soon as possible.  I skipped 7th grade, finished undergrad in 3 years, and started grad school at the age of 20.  I even turned down a year abroad in the Budapest Semester in Math, because I was worried I'd miss out if I waited too long to get to grad school.  The sad truth is that I wasn't ready.  Maybe you would be; I've never met you, so I can't say.
Eventually (after 8 years), I finished a PhD, and am fairly happy with where my career is headed.  However, I don't regret that time in grad school at all.  I learned a lot of useful stuff.  In fact, I think it's because I took my time in grad school that my career has gone as well as it has.  One interesting feature of academia is that you're typically judged by your productivity relative to the time since you earned your PhD (rather than your age).  As a result, I encourage you to take your time and learn as much as you can.  You'll never again have as much free time as you do now.

I want to add a couple of remarks to Dan C's excellent answer.
No, you should not graduate early, unless your finances force it.  Except for cost, there is no advantage to finishing early.  Admissions committees will compare you to other undergraduate applicants, not other applicants your age; age discrimination is illegal.  They will not care about your grades, as long as they're good; everyone applying to those departments has fantastic grades.  I suspect almost all applicants to top math departments skipped their low-level math classes.  I assume you'll ace the math GRE, but then so will everyone else.
What sets the successful applicants to top PhD programs apart is strong evidence of research potential.  To gain admission to the top departments you must have strong letters from faculty that directly praise your potential for mathematical research in specific, personal, and credible detail.  The only way to get those letters is to work directly with faculty outside the classroom.  Fortunately, because you skipped your freshman classes, you have room in your schedule to do that.
You mention "out of state", so I'm guessing you're at a big state school (like mine); your classes so far probably had hundreds of students, and many were taught by graduate students or adjuncts.  You have to break out of that; you must get to know some faculty.  And because you're at a big state school, this is going to require considerable initiative on your part.
Taking graduate classes is a good way to meet faculty, but it's just a start.  Do not just sit quietly in class and get an A.  Meet with your instructor early in the semester, explain you ambition for academia, and ask about opportunities for research and/or independent study.  Be prepared to explain what kind of mathematics you're best at, and what kind of math inspires you.  The first prof you talk to is not likely to be a good match for your specific interests; ask them for suggestions of other faculty to talk to.  Repeat ad infinitum.
There are many other reasons not to graduate early, which are less professional, but no less important.  Give yourself some time to grow up.

Too long to be a comment, and originally written for Math.SE -
Firstly, if you're set on a math PhD, then you will probably never apply for a Master's program. Most math PhDs apply straight to PhD, and these are generally funded (this is all under the assumption that you stay in the US).
The typical accepted candidate to a good math PhD program has a good background in the following:

GPA
Research
Math knowledge
GRE/Math GRE
Recommendations

One doesn't need to be perfect at everything, and everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. The exception to this rule is that you must have great recs - there is a certain recommendation inflation right now, and it seems to me that recommendations are judged just as harshly by what is not said. I say this only because without grad courses/research/high gpa, it might be challenging for one of your professors to speak highly on your behalf. Or maybe not - it's case by case, right?
I cannot speak as to how strong your exact application would be, as I don't know the specifics. Your best feedback would probably come from a mentor or advisor from your department, or one of the professors whom you would ask for a recommendation.
Without knowing specifics, I might also ask: what is the rush for? (rhetorically)
As a final note, I should mention that it might be possible, depending on your school's policy, to apply for grad programs and decide to actually graduate only if you get accepted/have positive feedback. But this is not ideal, as it's sort of a punt. Were you to not get accepted, you wouldn't have set up summer plans and your last year would be somewhat hodge-podge. Yet these are the exact things that would improve your application for the next year.
Food for thought.

The OP mentions the cost of college as a possible reason to graduate early.

Thanks, Qiaochu. Yes, the cost hits me pretty bad, being a recent immigrant of more than humble backgrounds, and the whole package associated with it (e.g.,first family member to have his diploma recognized in US)

I would reorder your list as 1. Research 2. Recommendations. 3. Everything else.

To complement other answers: the "research" issue is volatile. Ill-informed, childish "research" is not a plus in applications to elite grad programs. I think it might be more apt to be able to give evidence of _getting_in_sync_with_ some contemporary serious research, even if one isn't yet able to make one's own contribution. Better to be an apprentice at something serious, than journeyman at something of dubious interest to professionals.
And, the same thing said in a different context: coursework per se is nice, but is (almost entirely) miles away from live mathematics. Thus, the point is not to "bluff" "research", but to get beyond the sterile, formal classroom/textbook mathematics. Live discussions with faculty and presence in seminars are substantive steps in the right direction, without the too-facile pretense that one is doing a big research project in 10 weeks in the summer, based on scant prior information. :)
Being able to have people speak on your behalf, that you have ably moved beyond "school math", and that that's what you are interest in, and have talent for (never mind classrooms) is what will get you into an elite program.


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Is one or two years' postdoc experience helpful for a (nonacademic) research career?
I just graduated with a Ph.D. in Asia. And I'm considering to look for a postdoc position in US in the field of computer science (to be specific, machine learning and computer vision). But I don't want to go for a faculty position (at least I don't want to at this moment) in the future. I'd prefer to find some research position in industry or some research institute in US. My question is that do you think one or two years' postdoc experience really helpful for a research career, considering it may not be that easy for an oversea student to directly get a research position in industry or research institutes?
Some of the advantages I can think of are:

Postdoc's supervisor's networking with other people in industry or researh institutes
More publications before job hunting
Get to know more people in my area

Hope to hear some advice from you. Thank you very much.

Although CS post-docs are somewhat rare compared to many other fields, you have the right idea that it is a good idea as a stepping stone for further research or faculty positions down the road.  If you're willing to take a position and can find one, I don't think there are any downsides if you do indeed continue to publish and make contacts.  I would also suggest broadening your search to European positions, as there are many excellent opportunities at outstanding institutions there, as well.

@CharlesMorisset: yup. it's common to see CS graduates go for postdocs if they want to stay in academia. But I'm not sure if postdoc is a good step for my case, as I'm not interested in finding a faculty position in some university.

@Charles Morisset -- my experience is different.  I only know a few CS faculty that did postdocs.  That said, my definition of postdoc would not include a year in industry, which others may consider a postdoc.

It really depends on the subfield.  Postdocs are very common in theory, and very uncommon in systems and networking, for example.

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How do MIT OpenCourseware and real MIT courses compare?
Are MIT courses much different from MIT OpenCourseWare? I am curious, because as a high schooler, I have some intent to study from MIT OpenCourseWare.
Will this allow me to be more comfortable if I am admitted to MIT?
Also, how are MIT courses so different from those at other places? I heard that these courses are hard..

it is a watered down version. also answers are not available and you can't get support.

I agree that answers are not available and you can't get support, but what is your basis for saying it is a watered down version?  My understanding is that OCW is a record of how the course was actually taught (copies of problem sets and other handouts such as notes, sometimes recordings of lectures).  It may be an inferior format compared to taking the class in person at MIT, but the actual substance is the same.  Am I wrong about this?

yes it is wrong actual course has more. recitations problem sessions etc. also if u are doing a self study questions without answers are useless u can't learn well or see if you are really learning.

MIT courses are more advanced. I got a database class at a midtier U.S institution according to us news rank. MIT course was way more advanced they were coding a db from stracth, however in my institution we were focusing on sql using a programming language.  Also MIT course is more advanced then Gatech or UIUC UWA. They usually cover at freshman level what other do at sophomore level.

I am voting to close. While I think there is a useful question here, the current one about how to use on-line resources to prep for undergraduate study does not seem to be on topic.

@anonymousmathematician I think TMNT could be confusing a "watered-down course" with a course that happens to have an excellent professor who can teach the material in a highly understandable way, without sacrificing appropriate rigor.  The quality of teaching is hard to find at most places, so students watching the OCW videos might say, "wow, that's so easy to follow, the course must be simple.  These MIT kids aren't all that."

MIT OCW doesn't offer "courses".  It offers "courseware" — basically textbooks with videos.
Real MIT courses have live instructional staff who answer questions, run recitation sections, and offer feedback (in particular, grades) on your solutions to the homework and exam problems.  Real MIT courses have deadlines that force (well, encourage) you to actually work on the course material regularly.  Real MIT courses also have a community of other students, all following the same lock-step schedule, that can work together to develop ideas, internal feedback, social outlets, and later professional contacts.  Real MIT courses give you an official record from MIT of your performance in the class.

In counterpoint to JeffE's answer, let me also indicate that the materials used in OpenCourseWare have actually been used in the indicated courses. The assignments and exams do correspond to actual materials used at MIT. So OCW courses can give you a sense of the difficulty and workload of MIT courses, but, as JeffE indicates, the experience overall cannot be the same.

As an addendum to other useful information in answers and comments: it's not that MIT or other elite places have some sort of monopoly on information, even if one means bleeding-edge stuff. It may be true that the high-end instructors at elite places are in personal possession of bleeding-edge information, so can put other things in that context. And, indeed, those seemingly subtle aspects can matter enormously.
The genuine action-point is that, by merely "looking at" or having a "participant certificate" in regard to any discussion, one does not certify that one is quasi-effective in use of the ideas... and so on. That is, having paid admission to watch any sort of professional sport, and managing to understand the scoring, one has really no certification that one oneself can play that sport at a professional level.
Sure, if one hasn't ever seen experts play the sport, one is bereft. But, still, just having seen the Kentucky Derby many times doesn't mean that one can run a 3-minute mile.
The positive recommendation from me is that one probably does want significant contact with people who have made/done significant, genuine mathematics. Otherwise, if one is hoping to make research contributions, unless one is The Chosen One, one is stuck in a position exactly analogous to trying to make money on the stock market with just the same info that everyone else has (i.e., no insider info, unlike members of Congress are allowed to use...).
That is, it's not that MIT has better info about entry-level things, it's that the faculty there have access to, and are creators of, high-end, bleeding-edge stuff. As are certain people around the world.
Perhaps surprisingly, then, the point is not the "program", but the people. Their notes can certainly be useful, perhaps incredibly so, but it's still not the live thing.

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How to tell supervisor too many lengthy meetings are hurting your productivity?
My supervisor wants us to meet 3-5 times in a week with another PhD student of his. Every meeting is on average more than couple of hours. I don't know about the other student. But I feel like we are wasting too much time in meeting; it's hurting my productivity. How can I tell my supervisor to keep the amount of meetings and duration limited? To make matter worse, he also wants us (me and other PhD student) to meet separately besides these meetings. I am spending on avg. 12-15 hours per week doing these meetings.
I can answer questions why I think these meetings aren't productive, but that may turn into rant and I may put them into another question. So I want to keep it short and precise; let's just assume these meetings aren't productive for me.

I would think the number of hours your supervisor is willing to spend with you should be the main source of information here. During your phd your prime goal is to learn not be productive?

@chris "During your phd your prime goal is to learn not be productive?" That sounds like a whopper of a trick question.  Learning and productivity go hand-in-hand, and the OP could easily have phrased his question by saying that the 10 or more hours of meetings per week are impacting his learning.

@chris During your Ph.D, your goal is to learn, be productive, and to do research--in approximately reverse order.  As one professor I know put it: "One mistake you make make is to learn too much.", with the implication being that the student learnt at the expense of researching.

The point being the situation could be worse if the OP supervisor had no time to spare. No learning and being productive are not the same thing

The point of a phd is to learn how to do research. Full stop. Well you try and do this productively if you can. You will have your whole career to be productive if that is what you think matters

What do you do during these meetings?

I think all the current answers are wildly speculative, as we do know know or can only guess 3 relevant infos: (1) is your advisor also in these meetings? (2) what do you do in these meetings? why does your advisor value them and you do not? (3) how does the other student feel about these meetings?

For instance, you say "it's hurting my productivity". If the purpose of these meetings is to bring the other PhD student up to speed, this may be acceptable to your advisor and you will have a hard time convincing him otherwise.

Too much time spent in meetings with superiors is a common problem particularly in the business world. If you intend to begin a career when you've finished your studies, you should get used to this now. ;)

Several hours, on thrice-weekly meetings? How do you not run out of things to talk about?

I think this is a time to be direct and honest: just say you are spending too much time in meetings and it should be reduced.  Say what you should be doing instead.  A reasonable person should not be offended and should know that meetings can hurt productivity.
I also recommend considering changing the way the meeting works to align it with your needs.  When I am in a meeting, if nobody is taking charge, I will try to be a leader and give the meeting some direction.  Remind participants of the agenda.  Add the things you want to do to the agenda.  But be tactful.

I agree.  The way to tell your advisor this is to tell your advisor this.  I see no alternative.

Just direct and honest. He is advisor/not a chief, so you can exchange your idea as with a friend.

Volunteer to prepare the agenda for these meetings.  The day before, send everyone email asking for agenda items.  If you get none, suggest to your supervisor that the meeting be canceled as there are no items to discuss.
If you do get items, make sure "Adjournment" is the last item on the agenda.
Edited to add: There are two groups for whom time is literally money.  They physicians and lawyers.  I spent my first career working for one such group.  I learned that meetings need not be a time sink.  As I've said in a comment, the way to make meetings productive is to have an agenda and stick to it.  Meetings run by people who know what they're doing accomplish what they are supposed to accomplish and stop.  This is what Anonymous Physicist and Dave Clark called "aligning the meeting with your needs."
One of the things that chaps my buns about academia is waste-of-time meetings.  Happily, I am low on the academic totem pole and not tenure-track, so I can blow most of them off.
Another edit: I never had a meeting with my own dissertation chair that did not have an agenda. I prepared them and he seemed happy to have them.  Early meetings were formal and ended when we reached the end of the agenda.  Toward the end we met at a Chinese restaurant and the meeting gave way to lunch, but we never rambled.
Last edit, I promise:  What I am suggesting is the difference between telling the advisor/supervisor that the meetings do not fulfill the needs of OP and telling the advisor/supervisor that, but following up with a suggestion that my experience says will improve the meetings and may result in fewer of them.

Is the "Adjournment" item a pattern to delay less relevant topics in the hope they may get irrelevant before wasting time of them?

This proposal seems rather passive-aggressive.  I don't know anyone who wouldn't regard it as a clear indictment of the value of the meetings.  It would be one thing if the OP were simply a member of a group that had by custom regular meetings, and then the OP has a legitimate right to try to persuade others that they may be meeting too often.  But in this case, the OP's supervisor wants the OP to meet 3-5 times in a week.  S/he didn't say meet that often "only if you have enough agenda items", so the suggestion to cancel the meetings is clearly against the supervisor's wishes....

....By taking such an action the OP is signalling that he doesn't find value in the advisor's suggestion, but is not doing the advisor the courtesy of saying so explicitly and saying why.  Finally, though the question is rather laconic, a close reading suggests to me that the OP's supervisor is himself/herself present at the meetings: "My supervisor wants us to meet..." So there are three people meeting altogether almost every day.  Asking for agenda items does not seem like the way to solve this (What's more exhausting than meeting every day? Preparing agenda items for meeting every day!)

Actually, preparing agenda items for an "empty" meeting is very easy.  Yes, I assumed that the supervisor was present.  I spent 30 years in industry before retiring to teach.  The way to make meetings productive is to have an agenda and stick to it.

@VolkerSiegel: The "adjournment" item is a signal that the meeting is at en end.  The idea is to do what we said we would and stop, rather than dragging on for hours.

This might be appropriate for administrative meetings but, honestly, it doesn't sound like this is the kind of meeting that's being talked about. Regular meetings involving PhD students are almost always a direct form of research collaboration. As such, the agenda has essentially one item: work together on the problem we're tackling at the moment.

@Bob: My point is that if the advisor is there and is spending at least 10 hours per week on these meetings, very likely s/he finds them useful and does not think that nothing is happening during them.  Having an agenda is not an inherently bad idea (in fact it's a good one, in general) but (i) the advisor may or may not want to do this and (ii) having an agenda does not guarantee that the meeting will be useful.  Maybe the agenda item is always "spend two hours talking about X", where X is not what the OP wants to talk about for that length of time. He needs to speak up about this...

@PeteL.Clark: You may be right, but I'd bet, if not my last nickel, at least an age-appropriate beverage, that, based on OP's assessment, everyone including the supervisor would like to cut these meetings short.  They haven't been because "we've always done it this way."  As you say, an agenda is not inherently bad.  OP should give it a try.

@DavidRicherby:  Except possibly in academia, there's no such thing as an "administrative meeting."  A meeting ought to have a purpose, whether it is collaboration on research, status reporting, or policy development.  It should be possible to express that purpose in an agenda.  If it's not, then probably the meeting is a waste of time.  Example research agenda item: "Is it possible to express this concept as two or more genes (instead of one) in a genetic algorithm." That is something people can focus on.

"You may be right, but I'd bet, if not my last nickel, at least an age-appropriate beverage, that, based on OP's assessment, everyone including the supervisor would like to cut these meetings short."  Why is it necessary to bet on someone's intentions when the OP can just ask them?  The two of us have somewhat different life experiences but are both academics living in the same state in the US.  The OP is a student in Bangladesh.  I will bet you that neither of us has any special insight into him or his advisor.

@BobBrown "Except possibly in academia" We are in academia. It says so in big letters at the top of the screen!

@DavidRicherby:  I know... I know...

@PeteL.Clark: Actually I'm enrolled at a Canadian university, Bangladesh is my home country.

@user: Ah, that's relevant information.  Since you have freely volunteered it here, maybe you would consider editing your profile to include it.  Also, what field are you in?  I am trying to figure out in what context a faculty member would even have time to spend at least ten hours a week meeting with two PhD students.

Since my comments trigger such negative rating, I might as well turn this into an answer :-)
The point I would like to make is focussed on the fact that you complain about your supervisor spending ten hours a week wanting to talk to you. I would like to say, as a former supervisee and a current supervisor, that you should consider  yourself a priori lucky. Now it might be that your supervisor is also clueless, this I cannot judge. But think of this in the following way: the PhD is the last time in your life where you are being tought, in particular tought about how to do research, something books are not so good at doing. Should you consider a career in your field, you will have plenty of time to focus on being productive.
Think of your PhD -- and of the time your supervisor is spending helping you go through it, as an investment for future productivity. Of course you will most likely be faced with endless numbers of essentially boring meetings in your life.
You might feel it is already the case, but a meeting with your supervisor should not be of this type. My advice would be change the nature of the meeting, not the number of hours dedicated to them.
On the more general issue of being productive in research, personally I do not feel research is about productivity. Engineering might be, but engineering is not quite the same as research. Some people obviously think differently, which is fine by me.

Is it clear that the advisor is even in these meetings? It's not sure to me from the question - and in reality it seems more likely that the prof. is not there all the time when the meetings happen 3-5 times per week and take multiple hours. I don't know a single Prof. with that much time.

Well I was lucky enough to spend 4 hours a day with my supervisor

It is good that they have the time for their advisees, but you also need some time to actually implement the ideas that came out from the meeting and some time in between to think about it by yourself.

Let's say that if one wants to be an advisor, he or she would better find the time for his or her advisee(s), otherwise there's something wrong.

I think it unlikely that you will convince them to reduce the number of meetings; from my experience, people do not realise that you can do with less, until they have experienced the productivity boost themselves. In my experience, requests for fewer meetings are typically turned down by people who believe in the management model that regular meetings act as engine of progress.
If it is a purely scientific rather than a "waffle" meeting, though, then I recommend, just enjoy it. That's what you are in university for, after all.
But if the meeting is really unproductive (which means, it doesn't advance neither your direct work, nor your knowledge), then this is a classic instance for "manage your manager". Avoid directly criticising the number/style of meetings. Even at more advanced stages than a PhD, one will be looked at a person that is not ready to play ball.
Rather, be proactive: By you deciding what you want out of the meeting, preparing an agenda, preparing a list of expected outcomes, and writing down a mandatory "action list" at the end (which is checked against at the beginning of the following meeting), you can focus the meetings and help organise the thoughts of your fellow participants. You have a certain control of the agenda, this way.
If you push on the action list in a disciplined form, especially if you yourself act with discipline on it, but it not acted upon by the others, it may make the others in the meeting uncomfortable and lead them, in turn, to ask for fewer meetings on their own. Plus, you will be seen as manager/organizer of the meeting, and a disorganised supervisor may actually appreciate that, if it's done in a careful way. Don't castigate others for not doing theirs, just ask them if they have done their part.

Tips on approaching your supervisor:

Offer an alternative to the meetings:  Perhaps meeting once a month, or a "lunch and learn".  This sets you up as a solution oriented person rather than a "complainer".
Give specific instances of what is not productive.  I measure the value of a meeting on whether I changed something I do because of the meeting.  If I did not change, then the meeting did not have an effect on me and the value of the meeting is questionable.
Ask for an agenda for the meeting. This will force the person hosting the meeting to organize what they will talk about.

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Tools to assist with upper-division grading?
Are there any commercial or free products that assist professors with grading students? I've seen many K-12 solutions, but these are generally without robust curve options. I've seen a lot of professors that have created their own Excel spreadsheets, but I'd like to offer something a little more standardized.
Easy Grade Pro and Gradekeeper are time-tested K-12 tools, but lack extensive curve-based grading options, like weighting, adjustments for curve compliance (ability to bump grades up but only if you're still within the curve), midterm grades only counting if they help the student, and the ability to switch to P/NP if the student is in a program that isn't included on a curve.
Some of these may be very specific to my institution, but I'm looking for a starting point at least.

Welcome to Academia.SE! Could you perhaps provide links to some of those options, and maybe talk a little bit more about the "robust curve options" you're looking for? It would improve the ability of people to answer your question (one which I'm also interested in!).

I've never found anything except Excel (or its clones) that does everything I want.

It seems like Gradekeeper remains the go-to program. So if you want to do something more sophisticated you probably want to think about working up some macros in Excel. For example, this post has some good example macros. There were three extensive discussions of gradekeeping software on Profhacker that you might want to skim. One on gradekeeping programs in general, one on a neat iPad app called GradeBook Pro and one that focused on a few cloud based apps for grade keeping. None of these seem to really do what you want, and with any of these you probably want to talk to someone at your institution about any policies they might have, particularly for something like a cloud app or an iPhone app regarding where student grades are kept and FERPA.

+1 for the comment about the need for privacy. In most cases, it will probably be verboten to store grades "in the cloud" without extremely strong encryption in place.

...even with extremely strong encryption in place.


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Why use version control systems for writing a paper?
I am following the advice of @Piotr Migdal in Is there an internet Git-like repository for collaboration on a paper?, and I want to ask about version controls: how beneficial are they (specially under LaTeX settings) for writing papers compared to Dropbox and SugarSync?
I have been using SugarSync for almost a year with no pain.
Usually, I create the paper folder and invite other authors to join, so we can see and edit the last version of the paper.

I use version control for all my code, but not for the manuscripts. I tried it once, but it was too difficult for my collaborators.

Three words for you: three-way merge. Even if one does not use version control, I think that every academic writer should learn how and when to use a 3-way merge tool. It is a life-saver; much more fast and precise than doing the work by hand.

See also: What are the advantages of using version control (git, CVS etc) in LaTeX documents - TeX.SE.

tl;dr: Version control is harder to set up, but makes it safe to work on the same file, and makes it easy to track history (i.e. previous versions).
Pros and cons of syncing files
Yes, the biggest advantage of things like Dropbox (I use it as well for backuping and synchronizing my files) and SugarSync is their easiness.
They may work for collaboration on files, but:

they are not meant for two people editing the same file at once (no merge functionalities - so one guy changing a file can overwrite changes made by other guy, even without knowing that),
you get no history, i.e.:

did anyone worked on that file I want to work know?
did anyone added or modified any other files?
which changes were made?
can I go to a previous version, the one I sent to my supervisor?

Depending what you do, it may not be an issue. For example, if only one is editing tex file, while others are only reading or uploading figures - it's perfectly fine.
And also, look at my answer on Simplest way to jointly write a manuscript? with a not technically-inclined collaborators.
Version control
Version control systems require some technical skills.
Two the most common version control systems are Git and Mercurial (with the second one being more Windows-friendly and, arguably, easier to start).
Both by standard comes only with command line access, but there are some graphical interfaces as well (I really recommend starting with SourceTree).
So, if the collaborators are techie, just teach them how to use it. If not - there is a way around.
You can keep track of version control by yourself, without engaging others (I'm doing it just now with 2 collaborators).
Just you start a repository inside folder you share (the examples are with Git):
cd ~/path/to/the/folder
git init                    // start git repository inside this folder
git add .                   // say git to track all files inside it

Now, every time you or your collaborator make some changes (e.g. add some files, correct typos, revise a chapter, ...) you do:
git commit -a -m "Fixed typos in Seciton 3"

Later, you will be able to go back to this version; and also compare, e.g. the current version of your file with the previous one (by default - by line, here - by words):
git diff HEAD~1 --color-words my_file.tex

See also:

Got 15 minutes and want to learn Git?
git + LaTeX workflow at StackOverflow
Writing the PhD thesis: the tools Part I
Collaborating with LaTeX and git at ShareLaTeX blog - a great and comprehensive tutorial
What are the advantages of using version control (git, CVS etc) in LaTeX documents - TeX.SE
https://tex.stackexchange.com/search?q=version+control

And real world example from using diff (it makes my life so much easier :)); commit messages in Polish, but I guess you get the idea:

Otherwise (a strip from PhD Comics):

If two people are editing the same file using DropBox, DropBox created "Conflicted copies" rather than try to merge both changes into the same file, thereby avoiding damaging the file.

@BenNorris Thanks, I fixed it. Actually, I was thinking about overwriting files (so one's changes are lost as they are overwritten by someone else).

Ah. My collaborators and I use the "track changes" feature of MS office products. I am uncertain if open source word processors have a similar feature. In this case, I recommend date stamping.

Also, I totally sympathize with the PhDComics strip. I ended up with so many edits after "Thesis-Final.doc" that I ended with "Thesis-DoubleFinal.doc" after awhile.

@BenNorris I'm not much into version control systems for MS Words documents (as I use LaTeX or for some short no-math articles - GoogleDocs). So maybe for doc files MS tools suffice (or are the best option); I don't know. Especially as tracking non-code files (so not only archiving, but looking at differences etc) may be tricky with Git (I don't know if it is possible in an easy way); for Mercurial it is possible, see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6374469/svn-or-mercurial-version-control-of-word-documents.

If two people are editing the same file using DropBox, DropBox created "Conflicted copies" rather than try to merge both changes into the same file, thereby avoiding damaging the file.
How can it tell when that happens? The two conflicting versions could be hours or even days apart. This is impossible to do without analyzing the content carefully (and sometimes even analyzing it).

@FedericoPoloni - The phenomenon I describe only happens if two or more people are editing the file simultaneously.

Do not use git unless you're a computer scientist, and you have a lot of time to waste.

@Kaz I'm not a computer scientist and for me it worked.

One awesome fringe benefit to using version control for a paper:  Suppose your print out a copies of version n of your paper and give them to collaborators for comments.  A while later, when you're on version n+10, some of them get back to you, with their changes.  With version control (at least with Git), it's easy to enter their changes against version n and then apply them to your current version.

I use SmartGit to access Git. It's a lot easier than messing around with the command line, and free for non-commercial use. I found it's automatic connection to BitBucket didn't work correctly though, so you have to cut and paste the link.

I'm not entirely sure how dropbox and sugar sync work, but their main aim is not to monitor change, but to keep files in sync over a multitude of platforms and to provide backup. In addition, a good version control system allows you to keep older versions, but also to comment on the changes explain why they where made. The version control is also guaranteed to keep the chain of change of a tex file even over very long periods of time (say submitting to journal a, getting rejected, submitting to journal b, getting reviews, new version, acceptance: such a cycle could easily be 1.5 years).
Also, in a Version Control System (VCS) you decided when you want to save a version, in dropbox I can imagine that the system makes that decision. Being in control yourself is important, for example to be able to generate a difference file when resubmitting a paper (see also my answer to this question on TeX SE).
Using a VCS you can also collaborate easily with people. Just create a private repository at bitbucket (supports mercurial and git), arrange for the other authors to have read and/or write access to your tex files in the repository, and they can change the paper or add to it. The VCS will take care of the merging.
I use Mercurial myself for version controlling papers. However, for version controlling a tex file, a VCS might be overkill. I would still recommend Mercurial though.

For one tex file is is not an overkill - see screenshot from my answer and judge for yourself :).

+1 Really good answer! There are two things I miss here, though: 1) it's better to split a big file into smaller ones, this can be easily done in LaTeX. 2) When two people want to work realtime on the same file I recommend to put a multi-editor layer before the VCS. C9 or Google Docs are good examples.

I had to create an account to this Stack Exchange site as well just to give +1 to this answer. :) The nice part about Bitbucket is that there also exists a nice Android client for the site, allowing you to monitor changes to your repositories from anywhere (provided you've got an Android smartphone). VCSs in general are great because they save the author information for all the files in them on a per row basis. Tex files work well with VCSs because they are plain text files, unlike, say, Word documents, where you'd need to use Word's internal versioning features.

@jmendeth for an academic paper I would not split up in subfiles, for a report or book I would.

@PaulHiemstra of course, I wouldn't neither for a paper. But I was speaking in general. :)

I always use SVN for my papers for exactly the reasons above. Also, when in a rush(you know us students..) and you save something and shutdown the computer it could be that the file is not completely synced with dropbox.. With SVN or other VCS you must explicitly commit your change, making sure it is actually uploaded.

@jmendeth I would split up anything but a short paper into multiple files, especially if I'm working with a VCS. It allows people to work on different sections of the document without having to go through the merge process. But also simply because tex files can get quite long and verbose, especially if they contain tables or graphs

If people work on different sections, the merge will also be trivial.

Given the praise received by version control systems in the existing answers, I’ll play the devil’s advocate here for a second and underline what I think is a very important point: it strongly depends on what your co-authors are comfortable with.
I use version control for most of the projects I do on my own, from code to papers. However, you have to realize that not everyone is familiar with this paradigm, and those who are familiar with it may not be familiar with a given piece of software (I myself am a heavy Subversion user, but have never used Git…). This is particularly true of people who don't develop software, as those tools come from the field of software development. So, check out what your co-authors use and what they are willing to learn. The great thing about a simple synchronization solution (such as DropBox) with no version control is that its learning curve is flat: just agree on a few rules (date-stamp all files, add initials, always send an email when you have created a new version). Anyone can understand that in a minute.
Finally, I'll add another remark: the need for tracking revision history in the short term needs not necessarily require that you record the revision history for the posterity. For example, my incremental backup system (Apple’s Time Machine) creates snapshots of my files history every hour for a day, every day for the past month, and so on. This covers some of the need for tracking older versions in the short term.

+1 for the know your collaborators message, but if you are collaborating with LaTeX (vs say Word) users as the OM suggests, they are likely to be more open to the idea of VC (I would think) so it is probably worth making the case.

You can also move to a solo workflow when working non-VCS-users: you exchange papers via e-mail with your collaborators, and as soon as you receive them you run a git commit --author="..." on your private git repository. Alternatively, you put a git repository in Dropbox, and tell your co-author to just ignore the hidden .git folder.

how beneficial they are (specially under Latex settings) for writing papers compared to dropbox and SugarSync?

I am a long time user of version control systems, in fact everything I have (my $HOME folder) is backed up in a VC.
I tried hard to use various version control systems for writing many (10+) research papers all of them written in LaTeX. My experience with using VCs for writing research papers is however mixed, if not outright negative. Besides the easiness of synchronization with a VC, the main problem is merging the updates. Unlike source code of programs, merging LaTeX is not that straightforward mainly due to line breaking issues. Secondly, even though I have no problem with various VCs, my co-authors (very heterogeneous mix of people) not necessarily have experience with the one I use, or use different one outright, or have no clue about this stuff. Add the quirkiness of setting up passwords, ssh tunnels, installation of client-side software etc. and you see that all in all, using a VC is not a smooth experience (at best).
Recently (3 papers so far), I gave a try to Dropbox and I am pretty pleased with the result. While it does not solve all the issues, it seems to me to solve at least some:

almost zero set-up, also layman have no problem installing the client
no explicit sync, everything just works instantly (no svn/git/bzr/... add/remove/move/... command line stuff involved)
merging issues are about the same as with a version control system - even with a vc in place I always tended to send explicit write lock notifications to co-authors by e-mail, or IM
dropbox has some rudimentary version control, for my purposes it's pretty sufficient. Writing papers is not about branching, right?
moreover, no repository setup is necessary. You just share a folder with a selected group of co-authors and that's it. Nobody else can see it. Few clicks, almost zero hassle.

As you see, my advice would be to stay with Dropbox-like solution. For my purposes, at least, it turned out to be the best solution so far.

As a follow-up to comments received: consider also the requirements you have for writing a research paper. Why to use a heavy-lifting solutions, such as a distributed version control, when we are speaking here about 1-10 text files, a handful of images and possibly a repository of data (binary, or text blobs). Do you really need to go through all the hassle with a DVCS for that? Maybe, if your research is rather a special case, most of the time, I guess, not. To me, easiness and accessibility to laymen of solutions such as Dropbox by far outweighs the advanced technological features, such as branching, tagging, etc.

Can you choose yourself which old versions are saved in dropbox? You would want to for example keep the version you submitted to a journal for creating difference files, exactly that one.

@Paul Hiemstra: I speak about using dropbox solely for the purposes of collaborative writing. Additionally, I always store the text in my own $HOME folder, which as I said, is versioned separately. But to answer the question, upon a milestone (submission, revision 1,2,...) I always create a separate folder and store the milestone version there. After all, it's about the same as e.g., Subversion would do if you create a tag - it's a separate folder in svn anyway... Remember, a paper is a small piece of data (few kB), not a *GB code base.

merging LaTeX is not that straightforward mainly due to line breaking issues.
I'd rather say that merging in LaTeX is not that straightforward if your co-authors insist in changing randomly the line breaks in the file. It is sad that dynamic word wrap hasn't found its way on everyone's desktop in 2012.

“merging LaTeX is not that straightforward” – The way to handle line breaks in LaTeX, since code VCS are all line-based, is to have each sentence on a separate logical line. Modern text editors handle this smoothly and it makes the organisation of the document much more logical, and handled gracefully by VCS. — “Writing papers is not about branching, right?” – wrong. In fact, branching perfectly suits trial-and-error work, or work on separate features/sections concurrently. This is perfect for editing papers.

@FedericoPoloni: you are right about the inconsistent linebreaking. However, people are free to choose their tools and that might influence the formatting of their LaTeX source (e.g., some like to use LyX, or a fixed line width, etc.). There also might be good reasons against using dynamic word wrap - some people simply don't like it and find it confusing. Is it a reason not to write papers with them? Or to spend time in (mostly) futile attempts to teach them the "right way"?

@KonradRudolph: I do not want to start a flame about these issues, still there's one important non-technological point here. I don't know with whom you write papers, but my experience shows that not everybody is technologically skilled like me. Just installing and understanding e.g., git is hard enough for some, not speaking about wrapping their heads around branching. Did you try that one on a professor over 50? How about colleagues from humanities? Good luck with DVCS and branching. I better write a full paper and collaborate via good old e-mail attachments in the meantime.

@walkmanyi I appreciate that point. As somebody with purely biological collaborators, I think that this might actually be the real killer argument: collaborators may flat-out refuse to use this technology. So no matter how many beautiful arguments for it we find, we still cannot use it.

@walkmanyi I agree, sometimes you have to come to terms with non-techies. In the other post I just wanted to point out where the real problem lies in my opinion. Hard line-breaking hinders not only the ability to use a VCS, but basically any automated processing of text, starting from searching for two consecutive words in the paper.

@walkmanyi, whatever collaborators use is irrelevant, just handle your end of the mess under version control.

I strongly recommend using version control for writing a paper because my advisers have never been very good at using computers. They often edit the wrong versions of documents and then send them to me. Then I have to figure out what they changed and manually reenter it into my latest version. I work around this problem by keeping track of what version I emailed to them and then comparing what they sent back to me using release tags.
Don't assume the boss will ever use your version control system. He doesn't need to. But it's still extremely useful to use version control! Our papers are prepared in MS Word because that's all that the boss knows how to use, and that's the file format the journal wants. He often forgets to use the "Track Changes" feature, but you can use the "Compare and Merge Documents" under the Tools menu to determine what he edited. (Just "merge" it with the version you emailed, and the resulting document will display the differences using the "Track Changes" highlighting.) I never have to compare timestamps or worry about which file is the latest version, and even when MS Word destroys one of my figures I know that I can easily recover it.
You can keep all of your raw experimental data, post-processing code, figure files, and lab notes under version control, too. Then you can backup the whole repository and be really sure that you'll never lose anything. I apply repository-wide tags to indicate when I do new experiments, which helps to keep the code in synch with the data; this answers the old question about which method was used to generate the figures. ("Was it method A? We last used that six months ago, but it could've been similar method B that we started developing around that time. Maybe we used A.1? Great, we'll have to do it all over again...")
You can use the repository-pushing feature as a type of distributed backup system. I use TortoiseHg (a Mercurial GUI for Windows) to push/pull the repository to a USB flashdrive to carry between my home and work computers and also to a network share as a backup, and I never overwrite the wrong files or make extra copies of the files. By the way, forget about using the branching and merging features -- they don't really make sense for binary files, but it's valuable to know whether they got accidentally changed. Mercurial works quite well, even with huge binary files in vendor-proprietary formats.
Summary: Real world science experiments produce too many files to version manually, and the boss might not be very tech-savvy. Version control fixes these problems, and you'll never again have to sort through filenames with random dates hardcoded in them.

+1 for real world situation. :) My boss can't use anything else than Word, too. I'm using LaTeX to write my dissertation and still thinking about how to handle this.

While I use LaTeX, there's no way to get the boss to use it. "Track Changes" in Word is just too important to him. Maybe you can both compromise and use LyX (www.lyx.org).

I do not have experience with what I'm about to suggest, but it might be helpful. Use both; use both Dropbox and some VCS. How? Well, in the Dropbox folder that you want to share, start a git repository (see @PiotrMigdal answer). As far as I recall you can exclude a directory from being synced in the Dropbox, and you should exclude the .git (hidden-)directory since it is of no interest to your collaborators.
This way, you and you collaborators can easily share the data over Dropbox and you personally can enjoy benefits of real full scale VCS.
However, as always with shared-digital work, one of the most important issues is to set the guidelines - they should be clear to all participants.

This is a dangerous suggestion. If someone messes with the .git folder, it can be irreversibly damaged. Git has sharing built in and this can be automated Dropbox style. Use this instead. Not this easy, but way more secure.

@zenbomb: I see the problem. You could exclude the .git directory from the Dropbox sync.

There is a way out - use bare repository on DropBox which is the remote of the actual full repository which is located somewhere on your drive.

Although unrelated to the question, I must mention that this solution is flawed. You cannot exclude a directory on your local Dropbox folder from being synced with the online Dropbox account. It is the other way round which is possible.


text:
Why conferences are the main venue for CS research?
Based on @JeffE's suggestion here, I see many CS researchers care mostly about conferences deadlines. Even when they want to read papers, usually they check the recent proceedings of different conferences.
Having a paper in IJCAI or AAAI for example, worth more than publishing in many ISI indexed journals with good reputation. I have no hard evidence for this but being in touch with CS research, I see little discussion about journal publications. why is that? is it good for the spirit of research in the CS field?

I don't form the same conclusion you do from JeffE's comment. Specifically, I don't see where it says that CS researchers care "only" for conferences. More significantly, the comment wasn't directed toward an established CS researcher, but toward an undergraduate student. Walk before you run?

@J.R. I know its a strong only statement and I didn't literally mean it since obviously there are many journals (i.e. TKDE,VLDBJ, JAIR, AI Magazine) has high number of submissions. But taking the general view of many CS researchers I met, they really look after top conferences submission deadlines.

@J.R. I have edited the question to be more specific.

There's a reason CS folks cite when we obsess about conferences. The claim is that the field moves so quickly that conferences are more effective than journal for fast turn-around, and so better reflect the speed of developments.
I think this statement is partly true (conferences do have faster turnaround than CS journals) but misses the point entirely (there's no reason journals CAN'T have faster turn around time).
The real reason is the usual one. We got used to having conferences be the primary source of dissemination, and have no pressing reason to change. Having said that, the arxiv is more and more becoming the first choice of reading material and "hot off the presses" material, so I suspect that your question will become more and more moot as time goes on.

there's no reason journals CAN'T have faster turn around time — Yes, there is.  Thorough checking of correctness is incompatible with a short reviewing schedule; checking every detail takes time, and referees are busy.  (This argument doesn't apply in subfields of CS where proofs are less relevant, of course.  And I'm very well aware that referees take longer than they have to.)

@JeffE: I think there are very few CS papers that an expert cannot check for correctness in, say, 2–3 months (and if you are too busy to do that, just say "no").

For me "faster" = "< 1+ years". I think, as @JukkaSuomela says, that there's no reason journal reviews can't be completed in 2-3 months. Consider also the new reviewing processes for VLDB (more experimental) and ICML (experimental + theoretical)

Just to add some points to @Suresh's answer which already lists the most important reasons (at least in my opinion).
While it is true that brand new results are usually published in conferences due to their speed compared to journals (there's no reasons that journals couldn't be faster, but, as things currently stand, they simply aren't), there are still valuable papers to be found in journals.
The first type of papers I usually read from journals are extended versions of conference papers: once the author gets his idea published fast in a conference, if it is a Really Important Thing, there is nothing stopping him/her to take some time and publish a detailed version in a journal.
The other type is overview papers whose value is not in a vast number of new contributions, but usually are the first ones systematically putting a chunk of knowledge in the same place, and possibly giving a new view of already existing techniques/structures/whatever.

This, plus the fact that you can often get away with having less data in a conference paper – it's okay to publish a "preliminary finding." The bar is a little lower, and thus easier to clear.

@J.R. exactly. A paper in the conference might explain the technique, give some implementation tips and be purely theoretical or give a little bit of experimental data (and, label the work as "yours"). Then, in the journal, you would add proofs or formalizations to the technique, expand on any tricks for implementation and/or give a pseudocode, as well as extensive experimental results.


text:
Can I still participate in conferences, while I'm no longer an academic student?
Can I still participate in conferences and use the university name, while I'm no longer an academic student at the university?
As I could not complete the study, but I'm still interested in my unfinished research and want to continue it somehow! is it possible to use my university name in the paper?

Generally speaking, it would be okay to use the university's name if you conducted the research there and you're not currently affiliated elsewhere. Where it may become problematic though is if you're still conducting the research whilst independent of the institution. When you say that it's unfinished, and you want to continue, what do you mean? Is it just writing the paper that needs done?

You could try to get an association/adjunct nomination (without salary) from the institution to keep the affiliation.

First part of the question:
unless specifically stated by conference organisers, nothing prevents anyone without specific higher education affiliation to contribute to conferences.
If organisers want to know more about your situation as they review paper submissions, they can always get in touch with you before they shortlist selected papers.
Second part of the question:
Your study circumstances are not relevant to assess the quality of your potential conference contribution.
Maybe it depends on your academic field, however there are many conferences where you can see individuals who contribute or a poster who are listed as 'independent' or 'independent researcher'. Just serves to show that quality research is not conditioned by any institutional affiliation.
Using the name of a university you are not affiliated with in any role is a deception. You should not feel compelled that you have to have your name coming with a university's name to increase the potential for your paper proposal to be accepted.

That is a great answer, all I can add is to suggest that you are cautious around how you frame the use of your institution's name; if it could suggest that you have an affiliation when you do not, then I would recommend that you opt for independent researcher as the best description of your circumstances - I have done that in the past and it's been fine.

I wonder if there are universities out there that would love to "sponsor" an independent researcher temporarily in order to get their name mentioned in conferences. E.g. "Wow, I didn't know there was a Remote College of the Ice Cap of the Rural Fishermen's University of Far-Northern Arctic Tundra Alaska, and wow, they even sent a student to this conference all the way down in Miami!"

How does one source such a university? Is it time well employed? What's the benefit for an independent researcher to become affiliated with an obscure university name that brings no additional clout? Or what's the point of claiming an affiliation in the first place? Just because independent research is shameful?


text:
Falsely accused of cheating in college
I finished up a final exam right before the holidays, it was 10 questions, fully mathematically explained questions, and just after the holidays, I got an email from my professor saying that I am being investigated for cheating and have a meeting with my professor next week.
Apparently the guy I'm being accused of cheating from is a guy that sat in the same row as I did and he had some questions that had NEARLY the exact same text. This guy was my friend, but that's because we entered the classroom and sat in the same row, I had absolutely no plans of cheating,
I don't have that kind of thick skin and would never pull that mess - especially in college. Apparently my friend and I had some similarities between questions that suggested that we cheated, whether it was a collaboration or whether one cheated from another.
The problem is that I have no clue if my friend looked at my paper or was trying to cheat from me but I can be sure that I was not cheating from his work. I was doing my own thing during the exam period. If I get the exact same test with the same questions, I would get about 90-95% of the same answers I did for that final exam if I remember my material still, which I hope I do because I actually studied my best for it.
Anyways, I'm just curious, what exactly should I do when confronted - should I just tell the professor everything I just wrote here - Like what was going on. I'm getting anxiety over the fact that I might fall in to deeper pit if I sound aggressive or say things that might turn against my favor. I am willing to retake the same test in front of the professor on the spot to prove to the professor that I will get more or less the same result. On top of that, the professor allowed everyone to bring in a double sided piece of paper with information about the course on it to help us (like a legal cheat-sheet) during the final exam, and my cheat sheet covered about 9/10 questions on the test. What fricking reason would I have to cheat off of someone else?!
On top of all that, I took 3 different courses last year that pretty much covered 90% of the math course I took this year, and a lot of people didn't take those courses in my field. I took a course that covered probability, another that covered linear algebra and another course that covered proofs, all of which combined to create 9 out of 10 questions from that test. I knew all my material going in. What should I say or do? I don't want to spook the professor in to contacting the dean because this is phase 1 in the scholastic offence book - to contact the student first before deciding anything else to make sure there is enough evidence to continue further. Should I just say everything I wrote here?

Am I the only one who finds it weird that you are being asked to meet with the professor directly? I thought universities have academic dishonesty panels to deal with this. At least at my university, any suspected cheating is to be reported and dealt with through proper channels to avoid problems of "he said, she said" and professors choosing favorites...

At my school the instructor is required to meet with the student first before making any formal accusation.  The panels come in at a later stage.

Let things take their course, just...don't speak to your professor using the language you used posting this question.

@SeanEnglish For instance, in my country, cheating is usually handled directly by the professor, very rarely one refers to a panel.

"I'll take the same test - or another test with the same material - right in front of you to prove I know the material and don't need to cheat". Just my 2c but keep the other student out of your reply and keep any sort of negativity about the professor out of your reply. "I know the material and I'll prove it" would be my reply.

Note that allowing another student to copy after your paper is typically considered academic dishonesty, and from what you describe this is probably the issue at hand.

As a complete aside, posting on public forums requires a kind of formal writing. You ought to watch your language -- it doesn't come over as particularly professional.

@WolfgangBangerth: If I were in his(/her) shoes I wouldn't give a %$@! whether I'm appearing "professional", I'd be flipping out as hell and I'd want to just figure out ASAP how not to get wrong $h!1 like this on my transcript before it's too late. Cut him some slack instead of talking down to him, he needs help dealing with his professor right now, not with online etiquette. And someone already pointed out his language to him with respect to his professor, so repeating it isn't necessary.

@Mehrdad -- lack of professionalism in any situation is never a useful strategy.

@WolfgangBangerth: Did you read my comment? I literally responded to that in the first sentence.

Unfairness and wrong accusations make the blood boil, not just yours. The more it is important that you cool down and stay polite and collected. Now accumulate evidence that supports your case.
The things you write here make a good start.

Bring the "legal cheat sheet" with you and explain that you wouldn't have to cheat in any case with everything that was on there.
document that you took extra courses which covered large parts of the material
offer to give a test (unlikely that they will take it up, but who knows)

The things would demonstrate that you have no incentive, and probably no need to cheat. Of course, you can say "hell" and "sh*t" and "fr*cking" and all these things, but what you need is proof which these pieces of evidence provide. Do you have other indications that support your statement?
What reasons do they have to assume that you copied from him? Is he usually better? Are you usually doing worse? Do you suspect he told them you copied? As Ran asks, did you help the other student? (because that can create a problem, too)

This is a great answer. Another piece of evidence that might help are other grades you've gotten in this class: doing exceptionally well in one exam might be suspicious, but if you've been doing well all semester that's less unusual, and also removes some incentive to cheat at all. I'd also like to reiterate that it sounds like you have a solid record and very little reason to cheat: if cheating did take place, it seems unlikely to me that you were responsible, and I think your prof would agree.

did you help the other student? "That could create a problem" depends on how you help the other student... if he studied with his friend - throughout the course or within the final weeks - and they had the same base knowledge and methods? That's one thing... if he helped the other student by sitting within viewing distance... that's another thing. There are gimmicks to answer some math problems that may not be commonly used. Two of you used it? That's unusual... cheating? Well they studied it together...

@WernerCD Well, of course, I intended to say "during the exam". The only other "did you help" case that could create a situation like that is if both use the same cheat sheet - but again, that would work in favour of the OP, because then the source of the coincidence would be preparation rather than help during the exam.

@CaptainEmacs Yeah, that's why I mentioned rarely used tricks in mathematics.  If 100 students take a test and two students used the same rare method to answer the question? Considering the OP has taken other classes and knew 90% of the material going into the class... For example, if I took a programming class with my brother... I'd show him things 95% of 101 programmers don't/won't know. When we both take the test and use the same advanced features - because I taught him - it might be suspicious.

@WernerCD happening to sit within viewing distance is not grounds for cheating. If the guy behind you secretly peeks at your paper are you responsible? I would not think so. After all. Prove that you were even aware. Suspicious, sure, but it's not cheating on your fault. The professor should've noticed someone peeking at your paper or at least shouldn't blame you for the incident.

If you didn't cheat, then you don't need to worry. The professor will probably summon both suspected cheaters to his office in order to understand exactly who cheated and who did not (or, whether or not they collaborated together).
Just talk to the professor and tell him you didn't cheat (not by copying other people's answers nor by letting others copy from you). It is usually easy (for the prof) to learn from this conversation which student knew the material and which student did not. However, the Prof may still wish o verify you did not "help" the other student cheating from you.

"If you didn't cheat, then you don't need to worry" - I generally think your answer is measured, but I think this statement may be overoptimistic. OP should collect evidence and have it ready to not forget essential points while being angry.

@CaptainEmacs: just to avoid misinterpretation, the OP should make sure that they do not become angry in this conversation. It is natural to be stressed or even offended by such an accusation, but maintaining a professional attitude will serve them much better than losing their temper.

It is often that the guy who cheated won't show up.

This answer suggests that the prof is a mind-reader. "It is usually easy...": what planet are you from? The only way for the prof to make progress here is to have both students sit a similar exam under strict supervision.

@TonyK Which might fail to, given that the cheater now had 2+ weeks to study the material by himself...

@Bakuriu: If both students pass, then it's Mission Accomplished, isn't it?

@Akavall: I'm not sure about how "often". I have been witness to students appealing (formal procedure at the highest level of the university)  in cases where the evidence was overwhelming.

You don't know it is about answers similar to a person that happens to be a friend of yours. If you voice that it makes you look bad.

I got a good grade because I know the material.  Here is my cheat
  sheet - it covers 90% of the exam. I have the following background
  classes.  Exactly what I am being investigated for?

I would not even discuss this with your friend.  If you are asked if you discussed this with your friend you want to be able to say no.  For sure don't ask your friend if they copied off you. If asked you want to be able to say I don't know.

I upvoted because of the last paragraph.  Not discussing this with the "friend" is important here.

You need to explain yourself to the professor as best you can. It would be extremely useful if you can keep your cool during the meeting - try not to become agitated, raise your voice, use impolite language etc. Keeping calm will leave you with the largest amount of mental resources to argue your case, and will minimize the risk of antagonizing the professor (which could lead them to become agitated and start making irrational judgments) and escalating the confrontation.
In addition, you might want to consider asking the professor if you can bring a friend to the meeting - someone whose presence can help reduce your anxiety, and who is well-spoken and can help advocate on your behalf in case you become lost for words or are having difficulty putting your points across during the meeting. At my university students accused of academic dishonesty can ask for a hearing, and they have a right to bring a friend (or in extreme situations even a lawyer, though I wouldn't advise that in your situation), so I think it's likely that the professor will recognize that this is a reasonable request if you ask politely.
Good luck!

Let's assume that the two exam papers are similar to a degree that is highly unlikely or impossible due to chance.  From the professor's point of view, there are two possibilities:

Collusion between the two students.
One student copying without the knowledge of the other.

However, it is difficult for the professor to distinguish between these.  Further, if one student is innocent, it is difficult for the professor to know which one.
It is difficult for the professor to resolve these issues through a conversation.  Some professors may try, so it is reasonable to have a plan; however in the end an innocent and a guilty student could say the exact same things.
The only truly decisive outcome of such a meeting is a confession.  That is what the professor is hoping to achieve.  Since you are innocent, you need to persuade your "friend" to confess to copying, AND to say that you did not know about the cheating.  If you and this person both give this same story, you may still get out of this mess without any consequence. Point out to your "friend" that a full confession might lead to a reduced punishment.
If your "friend" refuses this request, and denies cheating, then I am afraid it is likely that you will both be punished.  As for the nature of the punishment, that depends on the university policy, as well as the professor, as well as the professor's judgement.  Taking the test again is a possibility, but by no means assured.

Don't agree.  What if the friend some says he tried to coerce me to take blame?  Stay away.

If your friend wants to lie, he can say that regardless of what you do or don't do.

The difference OP honestly say they did not talk to the friend about it.  I think they are better off not talking to the friend period.  But I still like your answer overall.

J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who headed the technical side of the Manhattan Project during WWW II, talked himself out of a charge of attempted murder of one of his professors while at Cambridge; see Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers (Amazon Kindle ed.). New York, New York: Little, Brown and Company.  He did it by AVOIDING confrontation, which is what you must do also.  Go in with the attitude that you want to help the professor get to the bottom of the situation.  Ask him what you can do to help him solve the problem.  Also, you need a knowledgeable friend: Your parents certainly, a lawyer who has worked with the school in similar situations, the Dean, a favorite professor, a school counselor; research it, Google or Bing it.  Don't go in unprepared!  If the thought of paying a lawyer for help scares you, then think of the consequences if they expel you or even put a cheating charge on your permanent record.  This is real; this is a part of your life.  Take it seriously.  If you enter a field for which there exists professional help, like an illness or DUI homicide charge, then you would seek professional help.  Now is no different.
One last thought, remember what the college and its staff want.  They want to educate you -- to lead you out into the world of adults with the skills and attitudes to solve problems.  In a very real sense, these people earn money in proportion to what their students learn and can use.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
What is minimum GPA for getting PhD in Germany?
I'm in the last year of my MSc in computer engineering and I want to apply for a PhD in Germany. I have a reasonable resume and have a published paper and my master GPA is 16.5/20, but my bachelor GPA in not so good, it is 13.5/20.
Can you tell me how much is this important? Do I have any chance?

As flo said, it totally depends on the university.
In principle, you can become PhD student at any German university if you

Have someone eligible (normally a professor in the department) who declares that she/he will supervise you, and
You meet the requirements from the examination regulations for the PhD.

In the majority of cases, the examination regulations can be found on the web. Many departments do not list a formal "grade" requirements, but some do. Typically, the grades are only given in German style, so there is room for interpretation when translating foreign grades. GPAs are pretty much unknown in Germany. Admission officers will look at the grades (e.g., A-F, where F means fail) and if the institution where the grade has been awarded is "OK". Summary grades are expressed in the same system as the individual grades. To make this part of the answer complete, as you are probably aware, it is normally a requirement to have a Masters degree before you can start with a PhD.
Structured programs, such as graduate schools, typically have their own rules on top of these. Again, standard vary, and you should be able to find some information on the home page of the respective graduate school.

Yes,Thank you, I get my Master degree until September and  I know that my thesis is powerful and sort of unique.It's my hope that with a such thesis I can impress Admission officers and they don't look at my low GPA in bachelor.

Hi @alihakimi - are you planning to apply for a structured program? If not, the admission officer will only do a "bureaucratic" check that will yield "satisfies the requirements" or "not" - everyone who satisfies both requirements is admitted and the thesis topic typically makes no difference. The person to impress is your future advisor in this case, because she/he has the limited supervision capacity (and also the funding that you are probably looking for). As already said, structured programs are a bit different.

Hi @DCTLib. i am looking for both structured program and individual program just related to my thesis and my interest.and yes I am looking for some funding. so that i understand from this argument that this work is totally charged with supervisor and i can impress her/him with my research work and don't be worry about my GPA.is that right?

For unstructured programs, this is correct as along as you fulfill the minimum requirements outlined by the department. Well, at least this is the case in every examination regulation that I have seen. As already written, structured programs normally do care about grades and have their own rules.

thank you my friend for your consideration...you helped me a lot.

This totally depends on the university. There is no common rule for all German universities. Having good grades in field related courses may be the most important part, also the thesis being field related won't hurt either. Other than that it can depend on the university, the faculty, the chair, the potential supervisor and so on.

Thanks for your answer.That you say is right but because of my bachelor GPA I have so anxious that it torture me.

@alihakimi Don't worry too much about it - if there are hard conditions about the grade, they will usually be applied to your master's GPA.

The exact requirements depend on the specific federal state ("Bundesland"), university, department and professor
Each federal state of Germany has its own university law ("Landeshochschulgesetz"), and that may impose limitations on the admittance to a PhD program, Additionally, each university can impose additional rules, and so can the department (usually "Fakultät") where you want to apply for a PhD. Finally, you must be accepted as a PhD student by a professor and he, too, may have additional requirements for accepting you.
In the end, you'll have to contact a department representative (usually the at the examination office/"Prüfungsamt") to check the formal requirements. Make sure you tell them your degree, GPA (and preferably also the interpretation of that GPA on the German grade 1-5 scale) and the country in which you graduated. This person should be able to check whether your are applicable to enter a PhD program, not only based on their department rules, but also based on university rules  and state law.
You'll also have to contact the professor that you want to act as your PhD supervisor, and apply for a PhD student position (this may be a teaching position, a research project position, or a simple unpaid agreement supervision).

hum..then I think I understand this from your comment that I don't lose my hope and keep working,with this resume I can apply and having hope for getting Admission.

Yes, exactly. One more point: German universities usually only care about your highest academical degree. So once you got your Master's, they won't judge you by your Bachelor's degree anymore. They may not even want to see the Bachelor certificate. An issue you may underestimate, though, is getting German universities to formally accept your non-German degree. While usually possible, it may require multiple formal steps such as an official translation of your degree certificate and some form of proof of equivalence to the German Master's degree.

I don't think I have a such problem about proof of equivalence my Master degree because as long as I know universities of Germany have no problem with IRAN universities. but yes, I need official translation of my degrees for apply. @Robert Buchholz

Adding a detail to the other answers given.
According to what I have seen and heard at the (German) university I'm a student at, your Bachelor's degree is probably almost irrelevant as long as the Master's is okay.
I think you won't need to stress out over a low score there. Personally, in the unlikely case you're asked about it, I would try to point out the improvement since then, and how you plan to continue that improvement.
Also, at my university there is a grade translation table, which can be used to map between Germany and pretty much every other country. You should inquire if your targeted university has something like that, too.

thanks for your answer @mafutrct.It's so good.may i ask you what university you study?I saw your profile and I'm glad that both of us having the same field of study ;-)


text:
How does the pricing system of degrees in England work?
I am considering studying a master's degree in England, however, the price system is quite unlike the system in the US, at least in wording, so I am uncertain how to estimate the costs.
The schools I looked at listed the fees in one of two ways:

Cost (2013-14)
£3,000

or

Fee
UK/EU: £1,000
Part-Time: £500
International: £4,000
Part-Time: £2,000

Most schools require that master's degree students complete four 30-credit modules, each taking 8-10 weeks, depending on the school, as well as one 60-credit dissertation.

Under the price system used in England, how can I estimate the total cost of tuition for an entire master's degree?
Do schools in England often apply additional costs, such as registration fees, technology fees, renovation fees, or special course fees, as is typical of US schools?

Most UK Masters degrees are a single year.  Even if for some reason you get an extension (e.g. to finish your dissertation), you will only be charged tuition for the taught year, maybe a small fee for remaining registered.  But the International fee will just be it (unless you are from the EU, in which case the home fee is it), and normally includes any bench fees.
Note the fixed tuition costs matters less for Masters students, but is a huge win over US degrees for PhDs – you normally only pay 3 years tuition even if you take 4 or even 5 years to finish.
A part time degree will probably take about twice as long and you will have to pay the fee for double the number of years.  If you are legally allowed to work in the UK, or you can telecommute to a part-time job in your home country, this can be a win.  Though keep in mind that the cost of living is very high in the UK and will probably exceed your tuition even if you are full time.
Anyway, UK universities are very keen to get Masters students, if you just email the contact for a university they will give you full numbers.

Part time study as an international student in the UK for an American citizen is likely not possible due to immigration rules. Getting extensions can also be difficult. The university will happily give you one if you have an extenuating circumstance, but the UKBA will not. This means that as long as you can complete the degree from outside the country you are fine.

We have a US PhD student telecommuting home -- no problem if you aren't actually being paid in the UK.  (Only the USA & North Korea care if you work both in & for another country, incidentally.)  The fourth year doesn't require an extension anywhere I know, and generally the fifth is not hard to get either, but may cost a little.  Suspending or taking longer can get hard.

First work out whether the price you're given is per module (such as is done by the Open University) or per year (common for most other universities).
If the former, find out how many points you'll need for the degree you want, and the number of points per module. And calculate accordingly. So if it's £1000 per module, one module is 15 point, and you need 90 points, then your total cost is £1000 x 90 / 15 = £6000
If the latter, multiply the fees by the course length. So, for example, if it's £2000 per year part time, and will take you three years to do it part time, the total fee cost will be 3 x £2000 = £6000.
As you've seen, the fees will vary depending on whether you're a UK/EU citizen or not. International is lazy shorthand for non-EU.  There may be a residency criterion as well as a nationality criterion (e.g. Bachelors degrees at Scottish universities).

How do I multiply the fees by course length?

@Village updated with illustrative calculations


text:
How to notify admissions that one quit another program?
I completed one term of a master's program before finding it was not what I expected, so I promptly quit. Now, I am sending fall application letters to other master's programs, for which I will be a paying student, but am uncertain how to mention this previous program, or whether that is even necessary. I do intent to send a transcript, as I want to transfer a few credits, however, should I mention this elsewhere in my application? Place a line on my CV? Mention this previous program in my application letters? Offer an explanation upfront describing why I left the program?
I found generally useful advice in Is transferring to another university an option for an unhappy PhD student?, but the answers do not explain what etiquette one should follow in reporting such a situation.

For your CV, don't focus on the fact that you quit the other program, but that you attended it for one term. As such, it would fit best in the section where you list your past education. Definitely send your transcript, because it shows that you achieved some things during that term, and will also count into the evaluation of your current knowledge.
The more delicate aspect is of course how to explain your quitting without full completion of the other program. However, I don't think that it will be a very critical aspect of your application. Such switches happen a lot, for various good reasons, and reviewers of your application will not automatically view it as negative if you don't push them in that direction. If you have good explanations for switching the program, you can put it in a motivation letter. For example, how, during the other program, you discovered that the program you are applying to know fits much better to your interests and skills. The CV wouldn't be be a good place for such reasons. If you can't offer an explanation that gives your application a bonus point, don't try to discuss around it in your application documents. But be prepared for questions in this direction in a potential interview.

If you can't offer an explanation that gives your application a bonus point, don't try to discuss around it in your application documents. — I disagree; I would view the lack of any explanation as a red flag.

I agree that not mentioning it is best; frequently, such information will never come up, and it is not necessarily germane to your application.  However, @JeffE demonstrates that not everyone feels this way.  Perhaps it is a bit of a crapshoot.

The important thing here is that you realize that you do need to report this information to schools to which you will be applying, as it will matter in their deliberations over your application. That said, you do have some degree of latitude in finding the best way to inform the schools of this. If they have a "special notes" or "additional information" question in the application, that might be a good place to put such information. Otherwise, you would want to mention it somewhere in the cover letter (if you get to include one) or personal statement (if you don't).
However, this information should be provided by you; don't leave it for the people writing your recommendation letters to mention. That will just raise more red flags.

Also, be careful how you talk about your previous program.  The mere fact that you left another graduate program will already raise a red flag.  Open criticism of your previous program, even with as mild a statement as "it was not what I expected", is likely to raise it further, even if the criticism is well-deserved.  Nobody likes a whiner.

Actually, I was just thinking of making a similar comment.  The admissions committee will be worried that your leaving indicates a problem with you (maybe you are overly picky or perpetually dissatisfied, or have trouble completing projects) or raises the likelihood that no program will be a good match (maybe you have unrealistic ideas of what a master's program should be like, and you won't find any program suitable).  So you should be careful not to say anything that could reinforce these ideas.