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Master's institution forcing me to deposit $5000 immediately -- what can I do if I accept?
I applied to CS masters programs in the US, and I have recently received an offer from a top-15 institution.
The program is unfunded, and I want to wait for decisions from other programs I applied to, some of which are funded.
However, the institution is telling me that they are only giving me one week to make my decision (I must respond by 3/13) and that I must deposit a non-refundable $5000 by that date in order to secure my admission.
As the school is not giving out a funded offer, they need not abide by the April 15th resolution.
Seems somewhat unethical to me, but in any case, I have some questions:
a) How common is this? For MS programs to force you to deposit huge sums of money within one week of the decision?
b) If I accept this offer, would it somehow notify other schools that I have accepted this offer, and make other schools less likely to give me an offer?
c) Let's say I decide to shell out my 5k -- would it be unethical for me to withdraw at a later date if I get into another school? They're not investing anything into me, and they get free money.
d) If I go the route of c), with whom would I be burning bridges with? Only the admissions folk?

I would definitely try to speak to someone directly at the school about this. It seems fishy and I would worry about it being a scam. Perhaps someone has pilfered their list of applicants?

@Dawn Well, it's in their official acceptance letter, and also reflected on their portal, so I'd be surprised if it were the case.

@Flyto That was my thought, too, but then I quickly googled "MS 5000 deposit" and found several institutions, including Columbia, with deposits that high. Yikes.

@Flyto: The fact that it is not well-known is precisely why they are getting away with it. In my opinion.

@Flyto With, admittedly, no specific knowledge of the admission system: One reason could be to make their admissions process manageable. They know that everybody has a umber of applications at different places running in parallel, so it is hard to tell how many of the admitted people will actually join; so they must "overbook" like an airplane, just more, and with greater variance. Without an upfront payment this gamble will result in either too many or too few accepted. The $5000 change that: The people who payed upfront are pretty committed, leading to a more predictable process.

CS programs have money. Top CS programs especially, have money for funding students. At schools where funding is only available for PhD students and the whole masters program is unfunded, they're sending a clear message about which students they care about. I would double-check whether you are applying to a top-15 "masters in CS" program, or just the masters program at the same school that has a top-15 PhD program. You may be better served by a school that emphasizes the masters.

I put down a $5k deposit for my MS program at Carnegie Mellon - It seemed a little fishy to me too at first, but I called to make sure it was legit, and then I began the long road of paying for my grad school.

Note that they're not "forcing" you.  They're describing their conditions, and you're free to accept them or turn them down.

I do not think the quick monetary outlay is common. You seem to be leaning toward acceptance and then backing out if you get a better offer. This may be possible because, in my experience, there is not a centralized system which lets other schools know you have accepted (although perhaps that could be different for Masters programs where you are using federal aid, not sure).
However, I would encourage you to take an alternative approach. Call them and explain that you are waiting to hear from other programs, some of which would be funded. Ask for a deadline extension until the April 15th deadline. In the past I was successful with this strategy, and I know students in our program have also successfully received extensions.

I think some schools make the request because they know some people will be complacent. Earlier money is better than late money. Even "better" if they decide to go somewhere else because they just got $5k for free.

Highly unlikely.  Ivy League schools don't care about leaving the door open for a tire kicker.  If you want in, unfunded, it's a $50k/yr commitment and if you can't throw down $5k to secure your spot, they have plenty of other rich folks waiting in the wings to take the spot instead.  Unfunded applications are very different from funded ones.  Unfunded means they don't think you're worth funding, but if you really want a degree with their name on it you can happily cough up the cash... and they will happily take it.

I just want to answer just this part of the question:

c) Let's say I decide to shell out my 5k -- would it be unethical for
  me to withdraw at a later date if I get into another school? They're
  not investing anything into me, and they get free money.

if anything, it is (in my opinion) unethical for them to charge this much as a non-refundable deposit. Because of this, if you do spend the deposit I don't think you would be burning any bridges if you rescinded. In fact you just gave them 5k, I don't know how you could dislike someone after that....

Does anyone know the reason an Ivy league school would need to charge this amount? who does the money go to? don't most universities not even need to charge tuition from alumni donations?

in general, the purpose of non-refundable deposits isn't to make money, but to discourage people from accepting, but then backing out. Maybe they charge so much because they're an ivy, and expect their applicants to be rich, and only fazed by a large deposit. (I don't know if that's a very true expectation though?)

@sntrenter A "top" school is going to have lots of applicants.  If a student waits a month and backs out, many of the school's next-best applicants will have already been poached by other schools, leaving a much weaker pool to select from.  A large deposit scares off students that are likely to back out, and helps ensure that the school pulls in as many top students as possible.  A more affordable deposit wouldn't be a sufficient deterrent for many applicants.  OP seems to want to do exactly what the school is trying to avoid happening.

@mbrig Exactly, see my comment under the OP. I also wanted to say spontaneously "$5000 is not a large deposit" -- unless you are fairly poor. Considering that: As a side effect they will have fewer applicants with money problems without officially screening by wealth (one of the eternal conflicts the admissions office operates under).

a) Increasing common in oversubscribed programs,
b) Very unlikely. I can’t imagine schools sharing admission details.   Moreover, if baseball and basketball owners cannot collude, universities cannot either.
c) It is never unethical to accept another offer.  The University might not like it but if they want you it’s up to them to make a better offer.  Nobody can prevent you from changing your mind, and if a university doesn’t agree with this do you really want to go there?
d) If you choose to walk away, you are burning your bridges with them, not the other way around.  See second sentence of c) above.
Although the letter of the April 15th resolution does not apply, it is well worth reading it to understand its spirit..  This passage is particularly relevant:

In those instances in which a student accepts an offer before April 15 and subsequently desires to withdraw that acceptance, the student may submit in writing a resignation of the appointment at any time through April 15. However, an acceptance given or left in force after April 15 commits the student not to accept another offer without first obtaining a written release from the institution to which a commitment has been made.

To me this reinforces my point in c).  What is unethical is to keep two offers in play at the same time, i.e. not promptly advising university A that you have accepted the offer of university B.

From the CGS website: "Starting in Fall 2020, applicants are no longer required to obtain a formal release from the program whose offer they accepted, either before or after the April 15 deadline."

From the Schools perspective its just a business decision. They make more offers than they have places for, knowing that on average not all offers will be accepted. Furthermore not all accepted offers will go on to study with the institution.
The philosophy here on the part of the University, is to make offers to students who are willing to pay a $5k reservation fee, so that there is greater certainty that the students "accepted" will enroll. If the student doesn't enroll, collateral has been paid for the unfilled position.
Other Schools dont know if an applicant has made such a downpayment. Nor would they care. As far as they are concerned, the applicant has paid a $5k optional premium with ABC to hold their place.
If you can handle the downside of perhaps losing existing offers, don't pay the reservation. However it never hurts to reach out to the college to see if they are willing to cooperate with your needs.

I downvoted. This is not an answer to the question, and I disagree on encouraging the OP to give money away like that, for business reasons. We are talking about education here.

I rarely downvote in this network but this answer is just the worst one I have ever read. Having to pay for a master's education is considered barbaric here in Germany; now people demand money for an option on education... Unbelievable.

The practice seems to be pretty common in the country where Gust is applying. I would agree that it is not the University's concern whether an applicant is holding out for another acceptance. What the University does want to know, is who will be attending. The deposit helps with this calculation, and lets them decide if they need to extend more offers, or withdraw some in order to meet the enrollment target.

Although I think it is unreasonable to ask for such a deposit and I philosophically disagree with the reasoning of this poster, this does not change the reality that this kind of reasoning is unfortunately not uncommon and that the reasoning is sound (if repulsive).

@HenrikSchumacher: It's an elite institution where thousands of people want to apply. A lot of people would also consider barbaric to pay the amount of taxes you do pay in Germany. I certainly do. It certainly doesn't seem to be a good reason to downvote NoName's answer.

Tell them to get lost. It's disgraceful to demand a non-refundable payment of $5000 whilst you are still waiting to hear back from your other applications and are not in a position to make an informed decision. The corporatisation of universities has made them corrupt and it is better to avoid them. Anything you learn in a degree, you can easily teach yourself using books and the internet. You can make it clear that you are self-taught in job applications, because you did not see the wisdom in paying a large sum of money for knowledge that is cheap and easy to obtain. If I was reviewing job applications, I would be more likely to offer a self-taught person an interview than any graduate, on the grounds that they are more resourceful.

"Anything you learn in a degree, you can easily teach yourself using books and the internet" -- I doubt this is true across all disciplines, and in my own one (mathematics) this is simply not true at Master's level

Hi Yemon, Thank you for your reply. But in fact I am a mathematician myself, with a master's degree and a PhD. And I stand by my comment. One can teach oneself mathematics, statistics, and computer programming using textbooks, and the internet. I have done this myself. As for experimental disciplines requiring specialist equipment, one can obtain a lot of equipment at reasonable price privately, and design one's own experiments, or verify other's experiments. One would be free from long-winded ethics applications if one worked privately as well. Having said that, I object to animal testing.

I realise it is ironic to advocate self-teaching when I have degrees. Therefore, I can point out that I seldom attended lectures, and just read books instead, when I was a student. I also got a scholarship for all my degrees, and I would never have considered paying a university to "teach" me what I can teach myself at a tiny fraction of the price. Finally, I did degrees long enough ago that universities were not the corrupt, money obsessed, grade-inflating degree factories that they have become now. I couldn't do a degree at a university nowadays and have self-respect.

Thanks for the responses/corrections. I admit that it is possible for some people to self-study their way up to that level, and I should not have been so OTT in my original claim, but I do think this is less common than people expect. It does also depend what mathematics you want to teach yourself: linear algebra, I would say you can self-teach; differential geometry, possible but harder; algebraic number theory, that starts to be trickier. (Teaching, where it actually happens as more than lip service, is also about correcting students' misapprehensions)

Thank you for your reply. Yes, I would certainly accept that the ease with which one can teach oneself material in mathematics depends on the level of the material. Also, I do recognise that studying at a university would give someone the opportunity to ask questions from world-leading experts, and that this may be of great benefit in the learning process. However, I have also found that, nowadays, one can email an expert with a difficult question and they will often reply with helpful information. After all, academics can find it flattering that someone is taking an interest in their work.

My disdain for the corporatisation of universities is easily apparent from my above comments. I have been influenced by both real-world experience and reading the book The Great University Con, published in 2018. I would suggest that academics themselves are hard-working resourceful individuals. What I have a problem with is that there are now large numbers of highly paid "managers" and an army of administrators in universities, when there never used to be and there doesn't need to be.

I think we may have converged to agreement :)


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Should research statements be renamed to match each university's specific terminology?
I'm preparing applications for multiple universities, and I've noticed variations in the terminology used for research-related documents. Some universities request a "statement of research," while others ask for a "research plan."
In the cover letter, e.g.,
What do I need to include in a tenure-track assistant professor job application cover letter?

Enclosed are my curriculum vitae, teaching and research statements.

However, I'm unsure if I should adjust this wording to match the exact terminology used in each university's announcement.
Considering the time investment, if I spend 10 minutes renaming documents (including teaching and the extra time to double check) for each application, it would amount to about 9 hours for 50 universities.

9 hours for a permanent job search is too much for you? Well, apply to fewer places I suppose. Seems a good investment for the next 30-40 years of your career though.

@JonCuster for this kind of thing, I would say yes. But I appreciate your suggestion on applying fewer places.

I would assume this would be a drop in the bucket compared to all the other customizing you're doing for a particular application. Right?

While it’s normal to apply to multiple tenure positions as one gets rejected from the first few, applying to 50 positions at once and expecting less than 10 minutes effort each seems very unusual. Tenure track isn’t about fire and forget applications.

Minor frame challenge: it isn't necessary to put something like "Enclosed are (list of the documents you require)" in the cover letter in the first place. If the documents are in the package they will be seen anyway. Sure, if your application is incomplete, perhaps such a boilerplate message would make the committee slightly more likely to reach out. But, assuming you double check that the application actually is complete before submitting, there really doesn't seem to be much utility there. (It could change if you attach and want to describe a nonstandard document, but I assume that isn't the case here.) Why not remove this sentence that communicates nothing that isn't expected and instead spending that space on an extra sentence focused on setting your application apart from the rest or emphasizing your fit for the position?
Customizing cover letters is worthwhile, but the effort is better spent on writing something meaningful than on dealing with specific phrasing of boilerplate sentences. That said, personally, I would change the heading of the research statement to "statement of research" (that is, in the actual document), etc. when appropriate. Doing this only at the end while double checking that have provided all documents asked for in the job description could minimize the overhead.

Ideally, you should not just be renaming the documents but customising the statements for each application. The easier you make it for each selection committee to see that you are a good fit for the particular gap that they are trying to fill at their particular university, the better your results are likely to be. The more you make them work to compare your CV and statement to their needs, the less likely they are to see you as a good fit.
Submitting the same application materials to every opening makes it easy for you to apply for many positions, but it means that you are not showing yourself to your best advantage for any of them.
My perspective is shaped by the way we do things here in Australia: instead of asking for teaching and research statements, each job advertisement lists its own set of "essential" and "desirable" selection criteria and applicants who do not write a response to each criterion as written will usually not be considered at all. I know that is not how things are done in the US and might seem like a lot of work; nonetheless, if I were applying for a job in the US, I'd read each advertisement carefully to figure out what they are really looking for and tailor my cover letter and research and teaching statements to explicitly address those implicit criteria.

This is highly dependent on the position for which you're applying.
I'm a math professor at a mid-tier R1 university in the US. From the standpoint of our tenure-track hiring, I'd say... it doesn't matter. Indeed, we expect (and see) very little in the way of customization of application materials. I'd expect the same is mostly true at similar departments.
But I chatted with a math professor at a small liberal arts college, also in the US, and learned just how different things are there. He said that he considers the cover letter the most important part of the application! Also, he recommended that the research statement itself be customized -- if I recall correctly, he recommended a shorter statement (around three pages), readable to someone well outside your field. I don't think he expects the research statement to be customized to his own institution in particular, but you wouldn't want to use the same research statement as for an R1.
Bottom line? Seek out advice from people at departments similar to where you're applying. Your question can't reliably be answered in the generality you've asked it.

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Applied math PhD program at engineering school vs. at math department
I have background and degree in pure & applied math, and I'm applying for applied math PhD programs this year. My research interest is mainly applied & computational mathematics in PDE(for example, inverse problems and numerical PDE), with a minor interest in theoretical PDE & geometric analysis and probability. All my research experience are applied math-based. The advanced courses I took were half theoretical half applied both achieving PhD level, and same ratio for my current recommenders. During application process, I found multiple schools have applied mathematics PhD program at engineering school, and mathematics PhD programs opened at math department offering an applied mathematics concentration. For example, Stanford, Harvard, UT Austin, etc.
The only difference I knew is that for applied math in engineering school, it's more interdisciplinary and often people with a prior degree other than math/applied math can be admitted, while at math department it's likely that one has to have enough mathematics background together with a math degree can be considered. And the qualifying exam in engineering school seems much easier than the one in math department.
I'm really not sure which applied math program to apply for these school. Could anyone give more information on the major difference between those applied math PhD programs (in terms of acceptance rate / research style)? Any suggestion is appreciated.

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Avenues to collaborate with PHD students / professors while working
What are some of the best ways\avenues to collaborate with PHD students\professors to do research and publish in conferences\journals in the field of software engineering.

Do students\professors encourage people reaching out to them on cold emails, if they are interested in their research?
Do we write a draft a research paper and reach out for collaboration\peer review?
Are there academic meetups where we can meet people informally to discuss and work with them on interest?
Are students\professors interested in the practical industry experience of the field and collaborate on publishing books, articles on tech blogs ?

Is it better to enroll into a part-time PHD, if you are interested in research but have the family financial responsibilities on you?
What are some good online, part-time PHD programs that are good and provide the flexibility to work during the course?

I tried to be a bit more specific. Getting the initial guidance and direction helps a lot.

This is certainly field specific, but in general there are few straightforward fora where someone who is simply interested in research in general can collaborate with a PhD student or academic. Such collaborations occur and often the results are amazing, but they tend to arise more organically than a cold email.
Thus to answer your penultimate question: yes becoming an academic yourself is the best way to collaborate with academics and do academic research. As for finding a programme that is right for you, that's another kettle of fish and you should be looking for researchers who work in the area you wish to enter and consider them as possible supervisors: that's research for you to do.

I get a lot of cold emails from non academics looking to help with my research. I've never said yes to any of them for a multitude of reasons. I do collaborate extensively with non academics, but this is because they are in positions that relate to the non-academic side of my work, and because their expertise if valuable to my research (and mine to the functioning of their work). We meet each other at targeted conferences, at government and intergovernmental meetings, or via a cold email that is based around a clear issue that needs collaboration.

Why not edit your answer instead of just commenting on it?

Because that is commentary, an aside. It doesn't answer the question and is certainly field specific and my own personal experience. More like a footnote.

In CS and I assume SE, conferences are a good way to meet people with similar interests. Especially specialized conferences in your specific field. Generally, I've found that people welcome collaboration and that such relationships can be long lasting and productive. Likewise, there are workshops that are a bit more intense than conferences, but more valuable.
But you need to build them slowly enough that people become comfortable with your work and with your participation.
I once joined a collaborative community just by asking one of the founders if she had "thought of X", which was related to her talk. She said no, but that I should write it up.
Cold emails probably aren't a good way to introduce yourself, especially if you flood the receiver with your work. But an introduction by email, expressing interest in the other person's work can help, especially if you make it obvious you know something about it.
If you want to get someone interested in your work, you can make an introduction and mention that you are working on a paper on "topic X" that you are willing to share. If they are interested, they will respond.
As to industry experience and interest, it will vary with the person. Some won't be very interested at all, but some will be, and you can often discern that from the papers they publish.
If you are a student, try to join the collaboration circle of your advisor or other related faculty members. You can get access to a lot of experience and wind up, over time, as an important contributor. Many departments will have a few research seminars that you can join. You can also found one if there is enough synergy with students and faculty. This works best at larger places, of course. But if you are at a small place in a city/region with a lot of universities, you can try to get a seminar going with members from more than one institution.
Also, respond appropriately to requests made of you. It will take some time and effort, but it can be worth it. But think long term.
But, online and part-time programs offer many fewer opportunities as it takes time and effort. I'm especially skeptical of online programs as they offer very little contact with faculty. Part time can work but only if you are willing to work very intensively.


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Is it disadvantageous to have recommendation letters from postdoctoral fellows rather than professors?
I am a math PhD student in a US university and also a teaching assistant. This fall I’m expecting to apply for jobs. I’m looking for math lecturer/instructor jobs.
However, when I worked as a teaching assistant I did not actually teach a course. Instead, I did recitations, grading and assisting. So I cannot get teaching letters from the department. Hence, I’m thinking to get letters from the instructors that I did recitations, who are postdoctoral fellows.
Would it be disadvantageous to have recommendation letters from postdoctoral fellows rather than professors?
EDIT: I don’t consider my post to be a duplicate because that post doesn’t solve my issue. It has inconsistent answers. One answer says Professor is better, other says postdoctoral fellow is better.
Thank you.

A duplicate means that your question has been asked elsewhere. Whether that other question was answered to your liking, or even answered at all, is a different matter.

You want the best letters you can get. A letter from a professor who doesn't know you well or your work will be worth very little as they can't honestly say much about you to boost your application. If a post-doc can, in fact, say positive things about you as a teacher, then that would be worth more. They are more experienced than you are and so will have some credibility.
This is especially the case if they had a role in evaluating your teaching.
For a more research oriented job the equation might work out differently, but for a specifically focused teaching job you probably would like one letter the can honestly and positively speak to that. The letter writer can include something about why it is they and not the prof who is writing.
But most of the letters should come from professors.


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Do publishers actually care about arXiv?
For-profit publishers (my experience is mostly with Springer and Elsevier) typically have some conditions on what you can an cannot do to self-archive your manuscript.
For example, Springer allows you to self-archive on your own website immediately but has sometimes an embargo period for arXiv and similar public repositories.
As far as I understand, you can get around the embargo period by uploading the pre-review text (And I suppose not using the publisher's template is best).
Placing your articles on public repositories is a common practice, so I am wondering: what happens when inevitably someone steps out of line and puts on arXiv a version too close to the published manuscript, or does it too early.
Are there documented cases of publishers complaining? And do the publishers simply send a removal request to you/arXiv, or do things get heated?

Springer allows you to self-archive on your own website immediately but has an embargo of 12 months for arXiv and similar public repositories. That's not correct. See https://www.springer.com/gp/editorial-policies/preprint-sharing, you are free to share preprints on the arXiv. See also https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/44524/if-my-paper-is-accepted-in-a-springer-journal-can-i-submit-my-version-of-the-ma

The links you mention are about preprints, and rules for what is a preprint, I am asking a different thing: "what happens when someone accidentally breaks these rules? do publisher come after you?"
I feel it is clear from what I wrote, so I'm not sure how to edit, but I tried to remove any ambiguity.

Not arXiv, but ResearchGate was sued for facilitating unlicensed sharing of papers. Posting this as a comment, because it's unclear to me if any of the alleged infringements were under an embargo period.

Thanks Anyon. Embargo was not of particular interest, I'm wondering in general if publishers care about preprints and it seems they do! A big difference is probably the fact that these were the final manuscript, and not the text recompiled in another template as is the case for arxiv (maybe this is why they don't even accept PDF anymore!)
If you post it as an answer I'll approve it
(sure makes me glad I ignored all those ResearchGate emails saying "we found your full text online!")


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How to write in the SOP that I need funding?
I am applying into a taught postgraduate program in UK. The professor suits me very well and he also says that he is interested in me. The problem is my research area is theoretical and he has no funding to provide me. He also provides some other alternative professors, but they have no funding too.
Since I really want to work in this area, I want to emphasize how much I need a funding in my SOP. Below is my draft, and I'm not sure if this is the optimal way to write this.

[Briefly summary who is the professor and his work] My desire is to be able to work with him, and it is my main motivation to apply to University X. I have contacted him and he is very interesting to work with me. However, since only applied science gets funding these days, he cannot get funding for my PhD. Therefore, having a full scholarship is essential for me to study in X.

Some details: my field of research is theoretical ecology. I'm an Asian, and I intend to apply to Queen's University Belfast and Queen Mary University of London.

While I cannot comment on the rest of it, I think that writing something like " However, since only applied science gets funding these days, he cannot get funding for my PhD." may potentially come across as hostile/dismissive and might be counter-productive.

Additionally, the statement "only applied science gets funding these days" is patently false on its face.  It may be harder to get funding for pure science, but it certainly exists.  It's not a good idea to include falsehoods or absurd exaggerations in a statement of purpose.

@NateEldredge that's just what he said

It's an obvious exaggeration, not meant to be taken literally.  People say such things in informal conversation but they do not belong in formal documents like a statement of purpose.

Disclaimer: Your post lacks some important details (field, university, and your nationality) so I am going to make a few assumptions. In the past, I also applied to PhDs in the UK, so I will give you an answer based strictly on my experience and what I was told by my prospective supervisor at that time.
I am going to assume that you do not have British or European nationality, since most British and EEA PhDs are funded by the relevant funding bodies (ESPRC, STFC, and others depending on field). Your options as a person without UK or EEA nationality are unfortunately very limited where funding is concerned. You are restricted mostly to funding from the supervisor directly (which you mentioned that yours do not have), a scholarship from the university (e.g. Rhodes), or incredibly competitive country-based scholarships (e.g. Wellcome Trust, Fullbright and so on). Unfortunately, international students (PhD and undergrad alike) are considered a giant source of income for universities, and there are very few scholarships available for people in this situation.
Do you know how much your tuition will cost? Are you looking for funding for this plus a living stipend during the course of your PhD, or are you able to support your own living expenses?
From my experience, and what I was told by my prospective supervisors at the time, the SOP is not supposed to mention funding. I personally would not include this in my application at all. However I would bring it up with the supervisor and with the relevant department. If your supervisor specifically advised you to mention funding in your SOP, then don't listen to what I'm telling you. When I went through the PhD application process in the UK, every university had a question about my nationality and how I'd be paying my tuition. Most had a radio button to indicate that you would need a scholarship or bursary. It is my personal suspicion that many universities use this query to rule out those of us not rich enough to fund our own PhDs or who can't take out loans for them.
If you wish to know more about the funding which is available to students of other nationalities, I can tell you what I know. It just isn't your specific question, so I won't type that all out straight away. I also answered this extensively in another question (which you can see here).
As far as what you have written, I agree with the commentor on your main question; your sentence comes across as resentful or even antagonistic depending on how it is read. I also agree with the second comment to your original question posted by Nate Eldrege; what you are alleging in the sentence is also factually incorrect (and maybe it is correct in your field, but it is subjective and unnecessary here), which will come across poorly. If you truly do want to mention your situation in your SOP, I would do so as neutrally and factually as possible. Something more like:

[Briefly summary who is the professor and his work] My desire is to be able to work with him, and it is my main motivation to apply to University X. I have contacted him and he is very interesting to work with me. However, Professor X, while interested in taking me on as a student, is unable to fund me at this time. Because of this, I will be applying in tandem for any funding available to students in my situation.

This lets them know that a) you have researched your options and your obligations as far as tuition/living expenses go, b) you have made good contact with Professor X, and c) you are exhibiting independence with respect to funding your work.
I can say that point c is very important, because being funded as a foreign person in the UK is very rare and you have to do a LOT of work and compete with many, many people to receive it.
All of this being said, the university may well offer you a place to study your PhD (it happened to me) but without funding. If you can't self-fund, you just have to decline the acceptance. It is a lot easier for an international student to get an offer of a PhD place in the UK than it is to get funded for it.

Thanks for your thoughtful answer. In what situation does a university offer me a PhD? Surely I have to apply to them to let them know that I exist, right?

Indeed, you definitely should apply. I just want to give you a good idea of the (sad, in my opinion) difficulty of funding international people. And don't be surprised at all if you get an offer, I did. I just couldn't get any funding, because the UK isn't really geared or interested in funding international people.

You're thinking of doing this at a very bad time for international students, I'm sorry to say. A PhD graduate from the US was just arrested and held in a detention centre, it made national news. The government in the UK is cracking down on immigration, even of skilled people. The political environment is just very bad for us non-Europeans.
BUT - and it's a big one -- it's not impossible! Spend a few days googling international UK PhD bursaries. Ask the International Office at University X. Ask anyone anything you can. In the end, I was sending pathetic emails to rich people.

But definitely apply, and work hard on your application. You're doing all the right stuff by contacting professor X.

Sorry I missed your other question. They will offer you a PhD if they think you have the skill and competence required to do one, and if your supervisor is happy to work with you. You will not be weighed against UK/EU people because your funding will be different. They may or may not look for funding for you (yes if it's Oxford, no if it's Cardiff University) but they will offer you a place if they think you can do it. But funding is another thing entirely from the offer to study, which comes with the requirement of paying tuition (at Cardiff it was 18k/year if I remember correctly).

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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How long does it take for PhD scholarship from DAAD
One Germany university told me that they might offer me a PhD position.
But they have no funding for me. They are applying for DAAD scholarship.
They told me this a half month ago. However I asked them what is the current progress of my application few days ago. The professor has not replied me.
My question are:
       How long does it take for DAAD application?
       What is the success rate if the university help me to apply DAAD?
I don't know if my PhD application is still being considered?

Half a month means 14 days, which means they wrote to you New Years Eve. I do not think there is much activity then, and I assume there's a lot of activity now after the vacation, so a quick response would likely be overoptimistic. Whatever the case, in case the DAAD falls through, which always can happen, you should investigate additional opportunities.

Recently I attended the “Research in Germany” events at the Fall Meeting 2015 of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. All of them were organised under the auspices of the German Research Foundation (DFG). You can have a look in the following webpage for more details: http://www.research-in-germany.org/en
Here is the link for research funding: http://www.research-in-germany.org/en/research-funding.html
Here is the link for financing and funding a PhD: http://www.research-in-germany.org/en/jobs-and-careers/info-for-phd-students/financing-funding-phd.html
Since you have already been selected in a PhD program, you can make application to many organizations for funding. Please have a look here: http://www.research-in-germany.org/en/jobs-and-careers/info-for-phd-students/financing-funding-phd/funding-for-phd-students.html

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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What does this Elsevier revision report mean?
This is a review report of an article on the EVISE revision status website:

Does this mean my article was rejected? Why there isn't any "Complete and send review" for the second reviewer? And why is the status of the article "Decision Pending"?

Related: What is the meaning of “Complete and Send Review” in Elsevier journal under History tab. If I would have to wager a guees, it seems that Elsevier has shipped a confusing new status interface …

@Wrzlprmft Thank you for your comment. Do you think this a problem in interface or a problem of editor in chief!?

The interface. File a bug report. If they get sufficiently many, they might do something about it.

@Wrzlprmft. The support team of Elsevier answer : This is problem of the journal!. If this is problem of journal, the decision made by only respond of one reviewer not two. Is this true?

Well, you would have to ask the journal. However, decision pending and reject almost directly contradict each other. It could be that the latter actually means recommend rejection and the decision is pending because some other editor has to confirm or decline the associate editor’s decision. In this case, however, Elsevier is to blame for the confusing interface once more.

Thank you for all of your answers and comments. This was some bug in EVISE system. Supporting section of EVISE is trying to fix it in next updates.

Thank you for all of your answers and comments. This was some bug in EVISE system. Supporting section of EVISE is trying to fix it in next updates.

My reading is that the associate editor has rejected the article and it just has to be formalized by either the editorial staff or the editor-in-chief.
Prepare for an email with bad news :-(

Now, with the miracle of the Internet, you can find out about your rejected paper even before you get the email!

Is it possible to say that an editor-in-chief communicates a revision by mail? or the editor-in-chief sends an email, does it mean that it is always a rejection?

@optimalcontrol -- are you asking whether any email is always bad news? No, EiCs also communicate acceptances by email.

I think it's not necessarily a reject. I saw the same status on one of my papers for 2 days and finally it was a minor revision.
My paper status changed from "under review" to  "Ready for decision" to "Decision pending" and finally "Revision requested".
I think if an associate editor rejects, EIC will never go for a minor revision.
Additionally, after reviewing the comments of reviewers i realized that it should be a minor revision (Rev1: Accept, Rev2: Some minor things relate to text and format, rev3: Few suggestions).

Generally, the Associate Editor of a journal makes a recommendation about whether the paper should be accepted or rejected. In your case, the AE has recommended a rejection. However, the final decision is taken by the EIC. That is why the status is still showing "Decision pending." Once the EIC formally takes the decision and communicates it you to over email, the decision making process will be considered formally closed.
In most cases, the EIC’s decision matches with the AE’s recommendation, and the EIC's decision is a mere formality. However, in some exceptional cases, the EIC might review the manuscript himself and give a different decision. However, such cases are extremely rare, and you should be mentally prepared for a rejection.


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Is it possible to apply for Ph. D. program in Physics with a CS background?
Currently i am doing BE in cs. Is it possible to apply for a graduate program in theoretical physics without having a bachelor's degree in physics or mathematics?

Would you please clarify  what made you think you cannot apply for  theoretical physics PhD program?

How much time did you spend studying calculus, especially differential equations? Physics, other than electricity? Those questions may not affect whether you can apply. They may affect whether you will be accepted. They will certainly affect whether you would succeed if accepted.

Question is closed so I can't answer. Yes, you can, and yes, you might be successful, even if it's much more likely you'll flounder. A good way to find out is take the 4 practice Physics GREs and see how you do. If you get a solid score, you're probably capable of catching up to other students in the program.

I don't know if it's possible. It depends on the country. If you live in one of the members of the UE, it is- this is the so called Bologna Process.
But another question is whether you should do it and I strongly advise you not to. You need strong knowledge of Maths and Physics. I highly doubt you will be able to catch up with that. Even if you do, it will take up a major part of your PhD and you won't have time for real work.

"But another question is whether you should do it and I strongly advise you not to. You need strong knowledge of Maths and Physics." I agree with the second sentence, but how do you know the OP doesn't have this strong knowledge?  Some people have this knowledge independently of what their degree program is...and CS is closely related to physics and (especially) math.

At my department, I know of 2 guys who changed direction in the sense that they have a BSc in CS, and at MSc they have switched to physics. In order to pursue an MSc, there was two entrance exams, one  in quantum mechanics and the other in classical electrodynamics. I have to say that these two guys have obtained the higher scores at these exams and obtained also a small fellowship, and they continued with the PhD.


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Rankings of the historic universities in Europe
I am surprised that some of the most historic universities in continental Europe are ranked above 100 on an average. I specifically have in mind University of Gottingen and University of Vienna. I am assuming that at the peak of their fame, they were rubbing shoulders with the best in the anglo-sphere. What caused the slide in reputation? I have heard that in Germany, Nazism caused the emigration of a lot of talented people. Or is it just that the ranking methodology is biased towards universities in the UK and the US? As someone interested in the history of scientists and scientific institutions, it seems somewhat odd.

@CaptainEmacs Yep. my bad.

Related if not duplicate: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/55925/20058

In addition to WWII and somewhat disadvantageous ranking methods, the lessened role of the old central European universities is also due to changes in how research works in general. The old public universities following the Humboldtian model of higher education (along with an emphasis of humanities, philosophy, and the "traditional" sciences) have not always survived very well in the current cutthroat "publish-or-perish" world of science.

First: Rankings are just rankings and are, to a large degree, arbitrary. (Shameless plug: Here is an article (arxiv version here) that shows that for some specific database many players can get to the top rank just by fiddling around with some weights.)
Second: Just as some universities gain reputation, other lose some. That's pretty normal, isn't it?
Last, some trivia: You are probably even more surprised that some universities of some fame in the old days do not even exist anymore. Stupid example: Gauß got his PhD from the University of Helmstedt, a town that has nowaday less inhabitants than some German universities have students… Another example I know of is the University of Rinteln. However, it is hard to judge the standing of these universities at that times. Alas, university rankings did not exist some 300 years ago…

The emigration wave indeed quite dramatically contributed to the decline of at least German research (and, indirectly, due to invasion of neighbouring countries - Bohr, for instance was evacuated - "pseudo-kidnapped" - by the Americans from Denmark). One anecdote was that David Hilbert was asked by the Nazi minister of education, Rust, how mathematics was in Göttingen, now that it had been "cleansed". Hilbert famously replied that there was no mathematics anymore at Göttingen.
Recommended, very well researched reading: Alan Beyerchen, Scientists under Hitler.
One more aspect to be mentioned, of course, is the concomitant rise of the military-industrial complex in the US which was fueled by the exorbitant success of the Manhattan project which showed how foundational science could be converted into direct, tangible uses (again not insignificantly by virtue of the scientists who fled Europe). This, of course, motivated a pouring of inordinate amounts of funding into research in the US, and created a self-perpetuating and -promoting cycle over many decades.
An interesting observation is that these outwardly disparate mechanisms are linked in quite subtle ways.

Does that last paragraph imply that killing and driving out scientists during the ramp up to an industrial total war could help your nation to be defeated by those places that drew in the fleeing scientists, and thus cause them to pick up any remaining scientists after the end of the war?

@Yakk Yes, the very scientists lost from one country to the other link otherwise pretty disparate phenomena. It's not unique in history. The Huguenots expelled by France went to significant extent the backwater province of Prussia, depopulated and weakened by the 30-year war. A few generations later it was able to take on France (and others) under Frederick (the Great) and later be the major driving force in unifying Germany. Another nice example of how the displacement of a productive and competent middle-class can change the backbones of history.


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How to include incremental research in the thesis
I employ an incremental approach for my PhD research. In other words, at first, I propose a method to solve a problem and publish a paper about it. Then, I update my method by either improving its performance/optimality or adding more features so that it can handle more cases and I keep publishing papers reporting my progress. As a result, I have a pretty good publishing record, more than 5 papers as the first author in less than 3 years. However, between each paper, I sometimes make some major improvement such as completely replacing an old approach by a new (and better) one to solve the same problem.
At the moment, I am about to start writing up and face the problem of how to include all my papers in the thesis. My initial plan is to mainly focus on the last paper that I have published since it contains the best version of my research. However, doing so potentially makes my PhD research look weak since I have published many papers but only use one as the major theme of my thesis.
On the other hand, I am thinking about writing my thesis as a research diary that reports my journey to investigate how to solve one problem, e.g. at first I start with this approach, then after further research, I employ another one which results in better performance... But I am not sure if it is a right way to write my thesis.
My question is how to write a thesis for a incremental research. It would be great to hear from someone who was in the same situation. My field is computer science but answers from other fields are welcome.

@Roland I am already discussing with my supervisor, I just want to have extra information before making the final decision :)

@Roland Not all examination regulations in Germany allow to staple together your papers and write a few pages for putting them into context. Some still insist on a classical thesis format.

From the point of view of the reader, jumping to the most sophisticated version of a method can be difficult.  A thesis isn't a textbook, but there are parallels.  A textbook often uses an incremental approach starting with almost a toy model to get the basic concepts sorted, before making it more realistic.  The assumed background knowledge of someone reading your thesis might let you skip the first step but not necessarily (don't write just for the examiners). It also allows you to indicate why you made certain decisions in the final version.

So essentially, you went about your doctorate in the manner a tenured prof goes about a problem: milk it thoroughly in a sequence of incremental results. If your papers are indeed incremental, without trade-offs that call of deep analysis, I don't think this makes for a great doctoral work. And I'm speaking from a CS perspective. And I would like to caution any current/prospective students reading this. Unless this is a monumental problem, what do you think is gained out of presenting 5 different ways of solving it (as a doctoral thesis)? You ought to have moved to neighbouring problems, or to a completely different one, rather than climbing up the same hill over and over again. But what is past is past.
I would take the presentation of such a thesis very seriously. Maybe you will need to work a little harder to put all of these solutions in perspective. Maybe this requires more work. But think properly about "what is to be gained out of presenting all of these different ways?" Clearly, you have done the problem to death by now. It seems to me that your best chance is to analyse the various solutions in an intelligent manner.

Your research is very interesting (I like your approach lol). It seems like you started with specific algorithm or solution to solve the problem and then you make it more and more general and/or optimize it so it can cover more cases. From one solution you discuss its limitation and problem and then propose a new, modified approach/optimization from the first one. So that will be a fluid story line from one paper to another. If I'm your thesis reader, I would like to see that kind of story telling :)


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Coming up to PhD oral, one examiner doesn't like my work
I have all three examiner reports, one from overseas, one from a different university in my country, and one from my university. My PhD work is in STEM, with a large component of programming.
The overseas examiner really likes my work, and thinks I have made a contribution. He is in a different speciality to the other two. The one from the same country, but not my university, and thinks my work is technically impressive, but needs some work - basically reframing some parts and adding a bit more explanation.
The reviewer from my own university pretty much hates it, and wants me to do more work - major changes. He also thinks my work is technically good.
Is this usual? I am incredibly stressed ahead of my oral.

Am I correct to assume that none of these three is your advisor?

"Is this usual?" is not a good question because obviously this depends on what is in the thesis, which we don't know. Also these things depend a lot on the subject and also country. Disagreement between examiners is fairly common. Otherwise it isn't really clear what you are asking.

@Buffy yes, none of the examiners are permitted to be my advisors. I am also not allowed to discuss the reviewer feedback with my supervisors ahead of my oral.

@ChristianHennig I'm in the situation where I have: 1 reviewer says pass, or with minor changes, 1 reviewer says pass, but you need to make these changes, the 3rd reviewer seems to be - I can't see why this is a PhD.

It doesn’t matter whether this is "usual". What matters is how you (can) deal with it. Both good and bad situations can be usual or unusual.

Well it is a PhD defense, not a coronation. You have to address their concerns and defend your findings. If you cannot stand behind your work, and do not know enough to defend it, do you deserve a PhD? You are the expert, go prove it.

I don't know what system is being used, so I can only answer for the UK, however, in the UK it would be unusual to see the reports before the exam.
In the UK its almost unheard of to pass your oral without corrections. The discussion is usually minor corrections (takes less than 3 months, requires only written work, no new research) or major corrections (takes more than 3 months, may require new research, but doesn't require a new exam), or resubmit (generally up to a new, needs a new exam).
The questions we as examiners have to answer are:

Is the work the candidates own.
Does the work show evidence of systematic study and of the ability to relate the results of such study to the general body of knowledge in the subject.
Does the work make at least one substantive addition to knowledge in the field.
Is the work suitable for publication, in full or abridged form.

In the time I have been an examiner I think the split between major and minor corrections is pretty much 50:50. Remember that last criteria, and then remember that almost no papers are published without a second round of peer review.

What I don't think is usual is your statement in a comment, that you aren't allowed to discuss these reports with your supervisor. And, given that, it may not be allowed for your supervisor to lobby with this other faculty member on your behalf. I also don't know what happens at the oral presentation. If your advisor can be present they can speak for you then, perhaps, if necessary. And, perhaps the other two reviewers can convince the third to soften their stance. But that is out of your hands, I'll guess.
I also don't know if unanimous consent is required for you to get the degree. If it is, then you may just be stuck and I don't see a way out.
I also don't know who chose the reviewers, or on what basis, or on what opportunities you might have had to avoid this situation via dealing with their concerns before this stage. Even the relative seniority of the reviewers and your advisor might play a part.
Some places, such as where I retired from, a negative vote wasn't final, but other places it is. Overall, I'd guess you are in a bad spot unless the system provides some way out. FWIW, I think it is unfair.
It might be permitted under the rules for you to ask your advisor to speak with this local faculty member and ask what they think. You don't have to discuss their report to make such a request.
For the oral itself, prepare yourself as best you can to answer questions and defend your methods and results, especially (especially) from this "dissenting" reviewer. That can make a difference.

It is usual, in some countries and some academic systems, that the supervisor must not be involved in the PhD defence process.

@Dilworth, that is a bit different from the advisor and the student discussing the situation as known.

Overall, I think that you are in a good standing, according to your description. All the reviewers think you made good technical contributions. One thinks you should do a bit more, but the others don't. Is it "usual"? I think it is: if you have three reviewers it is usual that some may be less favourable, while others are more.
You should simply defend politely your contributions. The worst case is that you may need to do some minor additions or corrections, and this is vastly "usual". Very few dissertations are accepted without modifications.


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How to find out if a journal is predatory?
I am considering the website of this journal and can't really decide if it is a predatory journal or if it is merely a very obscure journal.  As far as I am aware, it does look to be a real journal and there is no mention of article processing charges, but I cannot find information on the impact factor of the journal and cannot seem to find much more information about it apart from what is on its website.  Do people have any advice on being able to tell when a journal is a predator journal or any signs to look for?
I have checked on various lists of predatory journals online and cannot find it there, although I assume that just because a journal is not on any lists does not mean it is not predatory.

yeah that looks hella fake

Yes, that's what I thought but I didn't want to be judgemental.  Basically if it looks fake, it probably is fake?

Also related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2158/68109

The linked question has great answers. I'll add one question to ask yourself when you look at any new journal: Why does this journal exist? If there's some brand new academic niche, it makes sense to create a new journal. If the journal covers a broad topic that's already covered in the existing literature, be extra suspicious.

OK that's good advice, thanks a lot.


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What criteria would you assess to gauge whether to quit a Ph.D for a job in industry?
Just started my second year of a 3.5 year EPSRC funded Ph.D (in engineering, and using some machine learning) in the UK. I have recently finished my confirmation review so have secured the funding for the remainder of the Ph.D.
I have a conference paper from my first year, but I have spent most of the year up and down with the ebbs and flows of research and I am not sure I can handle it mentally anymore.
I am looking at applying for data science/analyst positions. I think I am far better suited to a life in industry.
Part of me thinks I should just try and grind it out and finish (maybe this is second year blues?), but part of me also just wants to get out and start progressing with my career (I already have a Masters degree).
At what stage would you consider leaving a PhD in order to pursue an industry career?

The question is personal and opinion based, so not a good candidate for this site. I suggest you seek local advice from people who know you.

Fair enough. Though perhaps it would be good to hear of any people who felt this way during their and what they chose to do?

Sure this is okay (why wouldn't it be?). If your fear is that industry sees you as a failure when not completing the PHD, you might want to apply and leave the PHD program as soon as you find an industry job. Don't waste time in academia if it makes you unhappy.

Yes, it is the fear of being seen as a failure by industry and the potential damage it may have to career prospects. Thanks for your comments.

Be sure it's not just post-conference-depression. Everybody goes through these ups-and-downs. Put the question aside for at least three days. Don't brood on it. Find useful activity. "If you feel bad, act" is a wise proverb.  If you feel bad for weeks then something needs to change.

I'd like to share my experience. I did a PhD on Computer Vision that took 4 years. I suffered from the impostor syndrome a lot and stopped to think about quitting at least once every year. Some time after I completed it, I was asked if I would apply for a PhD again if we were back in time. After thinking a lot, I said "no".
Today, 6 years later, I think the opposite. Although I don't think my PhD thesis was great, it produced some results that are highly valued by some people in the community. Also, having a PhD opened the door to very good jobs in the industry, where I am now.

Can you switch to an MPhil?

I think I can switch to an MPhil. My research interests are based more in the machine learning side of things instead of the structural engineering aspects.

"you think" you'd be happy working might not be enough, depend on the situation I suggest you to take a leave of absence (usually universities in the UK allow this) for 6-12 months, and get a job so you know for sure what ticks for you, then decide whether to return to your program or keep the industry position. Don't feel guilty for taking options that are readily available.
I had similar experience and this, to go or to stay, might be the hardest question I had to answer myself for the longest time. In the end I decided to stick it out, but I also have a close friend who's having the time of their live ditching their PhD 2 years in. You just need to work out the best approach for your situation, and the best way to do it is from a little bit of distance.
Good luck!

The standard advice given on the Workplace StackExchange site is “don’t quit your job until you get an offer from another employer”. I think that would also apply to your case: don’t quit your PhD until you’ve gotten a job offer from someone in industry. You may or may not regret quitting your PhD for a job in industry, but you’ll definitely regret quitting your PhD and then failing to find a job in industry!


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Are there any examples of people who successfully did a startup AND worked in academia? Or is it better to just choose one?
I'm a newly minted PhD researcher from Sweden who just finished my defense this summer (after a really stressfull and draining final year). Ever since then I have been thinking about my future in academia. I basically decided I wanted to build a startup together some friends of mine and we are now in the middle of developing a note-taking app for academia to make it easier to write and organize notes when writing research articles. We've received a bunch of really encouraging feedback so far from the people who have signed up for the free test version. However, I realize that the more time I spend on this, the less time I have to build my academic profile, publish papers and so forth.
So my specific questions are:

Are there any successful examples of people who have managed to both be part of a growing startup and continue on in academia?
I've currently chosen to work in academia only part-time (making basically 1/3 of the salary that I made as a PhD student, just barely enough to pay the bills so I don't take from my limited savings) but I keep hearing the advice that it's better to go all in and remove any safety net? Is this good advice or is it better to do it gradually?

Are there any successful examples of people who have managed to both be part of a growing startup and continue on in academia? --- I'm sure there are plenty (a former student of mine probably qualifies), but this is obviously very dependent on your field (e.g. probably won't find many such people in Classics and Ancient History departments) and your talent and your enterprising spirit. After all, some people can earn a lot playing chess, but in general it's not a safe career choice.

Don't take this the wrong way, but: You already have experience with working two careers, finding it difficult. What information that you don't have yet would knowing about the existence of someone who had success working two careers, but who is not you, add? You need to assess your situation, not the  hypothetical situation of some other hypothetical person.

@henning--reinstateMonica You are absolutely right that someone else's experience won't necessarily reflect my own. However, it could perhaps give some food for thought, inspiration or perhaps a cautionary tale on things to avoid?

yes, but they are seniors. Usually people who just  finished PhD are not ready  for such a step.

There is a huge literature on the topic of academic entrepreneurs (and entrepreneurial academics). A recent review of the literature can be found here. Similarly, there are many books on the topic (e.g. here and here). Plus millions of blog posts (e.g. here).
I think it is hard to generalise. For example, this paper highlights the multitude of dimensions involved in the extent and success of entrepreneuring, some outside the control of the individual. This paper distinguished between three groups. First, the ‘entrepreneurial academics’:

These are individuals who planned to stay in a university but also spent time working in spin‐out companies. They had experienced a number of operational difficulties in trying to develop this new career type and many felt that although the government and universities said they want them to work like this, they had been slow to adjust their own policies and procedures to take account of this change.

A second group, consisting of:

individuals who were in the process of developing a new kind of career as technology‐transfer professionals. Notably they were younger than those in the first group, and more junior within their departments. The majority wished to stay working in a university context but did not see themselves staying at the laboratory bench.

Finally, the third group:

made up of younger people who have either recently completed their PhD or have been employed on postdoctoral research contracts. Most seemed unsure where their future direction lay and were using [a research program] to develop the knowledge, skills and resources that they saw as vital to the development of a successful career. ... The scientists in the third group were well aware of the traditional scientific career path and its status but saw it as largely unavailable; a relic of the past that was now only offered to the lucky few. Their aim was to find, or develop, a career path that would allow them to use their science, provide opportunities for growth, and offer a degree of security unavailable to the large numbers of postdoctoral scientists who find themselves in a seemingly endless spiral of short‐term contracts.

Relatedly, this paper offers and tests a model of career path, concluding that:

entrepreneurial self-efficacy, type of research, perceived role models, number of years spent at an academic institution, and patents are significantly related to the formation of academic-entrepreneurial intentions, regardless of cultural context.

A similar approach is taking by this paper.
The bottom line is that success as entrepreneurs depends on many conditions, some outside the control of the academic. There are different models in which academics engage in these activities, some involving moving away from academia. All in all, beyond anecdotal evidence, of course there are successful entrepreneurial academics. Whether you can be one or not is something you must confront with the evidence above and your own insights.

People who go into startups tend to become completely consumed by those startups, or else the startups fail.
As such, what I've observed amongst my colleagues is that the professor generally either quickly ends up in only a consulting/advisory role or else jumps ship to the startup.
What seems to work very well, however, is for graduating students or postdocs to become the core members of the startup.  The folks graduating from the lab generally are the most deeply familiar with the specific technology, and they're in a good situation to invest themselves fully in the startup. The professor then typically lends their name and their expertise at a lower level.
In short: it's best to choose one or the other, but one can generally de facto split the difference because there's usually more than one person involved.

But you can be consumed in startup more than 100% but it can still fail. In general most fail

@SSimon Yes, it's true that startups fail for many reasons. That doesn't actually conflict with what I have written.

In my experience, those who succeed in academia tend to work quite hard at it. If you just want to teach classes, and not worry about research, then I think that working part-time might make sense. But if you want a career as a researcher, then without a full-time effort you might find it difficult to keep up with your field at all.
From what I have read, those who succeed at startups work still harder at them. You might read Paul Graham's essays on this. He describes his days as a founder of Viaweb -- at one point, he had to have a root canal done, and he had been working so hard that sitting in the dentist's chair felt like a break.
I know of two examples of startups started by research mathematicians. One is NTRU, started by three very successful number theorists, which sold cryptography software. From what I recall, the startup was only modestly successful, but the founders are all still very successful academics.
Conversely, there is William Stein. For awhile he worked simultaneously as an academic and a startup founder, and he has since resigned his academic post to work full time on his business (which I understand is doing well).
In summary, I suspect that succeeding at academia and at a startup simultaneously would require a huge amount of motivation to work very hard, together with very good luck. You might be able to do both for a year, if you have a lot of energy, but in the long run I suspect that you would probably want to choose.

Thanks, I rewarded you the bounty, those were some interesting examples. This was sort of what I was looking for. I've read some of Paul Graham's essays (most notably the one about growth) before but not this particular article that you referenced. Thanks for sharing it. Have you been involved with a start-up before?
As far as your comment regarding being part-time in academia. I am basically doing basic "grunt work" remotely (writing drafts, literature reviews, writing reports) etc and I don't have any interest in pursuing an academic career.

Summary: a whole-hearted career is usually not achieved in part-time. Neither in academia nor in industry.
The exception I can see, though, is if the start-up is closely related to the founder's field of research. In that case, the professional experience from both academia and business may sucessfully add up, and can be transferred from one to the other, e.g. academic research going into high-tech business, and business experience providing knowledge such as "this works in practice and also over extended time".
(I'd definitively not take the full plunge in your situation - unless a founder grant comes up that pays you for developing the business full time. But that is something that you'll have to decide for yourself.)

Disclaimer: I'm business owner, still quite close to academia (see below) and doing research, but not a start-up founder (in the sense that I'm not planning fast/explosive growth for the company)
IMHO there are some business models and circumstances that go well alongside academia/research and give synergy effects while other combinations don't combine as well/just exist in parallel without synergy.
E.g. my business now is pretty much the same as what I did as researcher: chemometrics, i.e. data analysis specialized to chemistry.
In contrast, your business idea is related to academia (you spotted a need there), but that experience is unlikely to help your civil engineering academic carreer (nor vice versa).
This will probably make the transition/distinction between academia and business harder/sharper for you. However, there's still quite a lot of room for you to decide how much of a sharp transition is is to be.

[Working part-time vs.] I keep hearing the advice that it's better to go all in and remove any safety net

That's of course up to you to decide. And as a startup founder, you may as well get used to making decision of that "size".
The most obvious advantage of going all in is developing the business faster. This may mean more profit/success earlier, and it may tip the scales to becoming successful at all.
I went the gradual way, very much so: I first had my business as a side-line that served also as having an immediate plan B to counter academic job insecurity, at the same time putting together quite some savings (by working while sticking to a student lifestyle - this easy when working in academia as large parts of the colleagues around are unpaid or on part-time wage), both with the primary goal of creating a level playing field for academic job negotiations. After some 10 years of experience in my field I finally decided it's time to move more seriously into business, and took the offer of my employer to "phase out" with a part-time contract looking a bit longer after one research project. Since then, I've had more part-time contracts at other academic institutes, which I mentally treat as clients, though: they had grants that called for employees but did not allow sub-contractors.
In that situation, the part-time academia/part-time self-employed has some burocratic disadvantages: I need non-standard working contracts that explicitly put formal boundaries around what is supposed to be the results of the employed work (otherwise e.g. copyright for software I write for a customer or for my company may end up being with the [academic] employer) - and university HR departments may will probably block anything they are not used to ("We never do anything but standard contracts").
Consequences
Back to the recommendation of plunging in: I'd also recommend to keep in mind how much skin those who advise you have in the consequences of that decision (i.e. Is it your parents who advise and would maybe take you into their home again if the business fails and you're deep in debt? Or who even say that they'd bail you out up to xxx SEK?  Is it some friends for whom your financial desaster won't have the slightest consequence? Is it someone who could easily afford to loose, say, 1/4 mio SEK or 25 k€ or even more on the start-up experiment telling you what they'd do in your place?)
Of course if you go wholly in at a stage in life where you have hardly any savings, there isn't as much that is lost if that business fails. But you may be ending in a personal bankrupcy. Also, some business models have clients that take a deep look into the financial position of the owner, or that may require substantial financial stamina - my experience with universities as late paying customers suggests that the latter may be the case with your business as well.
There are also cultural aspects here: I'm in Germany where society is in general comparably risk-averse and failing as business owner (and much less personal bancruptcy) is not really the done thing.
Plus, what are the consequences in terms of social insurance of (not) having a side job? Here, the social security system in large parts revolves around the so-called  normal employee. One of the peculiarities is that for self-employed the governmental health insurance has a minimum contribution (which was recently lowered so that the proportional zone starts now already at ≈1040 €/month), another one is that for self-employed all sources of income count while for employees only the wage is subject to health insurance fees.
In consequence, the recommendation here for most is to start a business from a part-time position if feasible (unless one is really sure that it will generate good income from the 1st year on, or one is paid by a business founder grant etc.).
All this aside, some startup statistics:

the vast majority (> 3/4) of start-ups have their founders actually put savings into the business (EU Startup Monitor 2018, numbers in the US are AFAIK similar).
It is normal for a startup to take years becoming successful. This doesn't mean the business won't be able to pay, but if you have the financial freedom to decide whether it's good to take out money to pay yourself vs. leaving that money in the business as investment you're obviously in a much better position than if you have to take out the money for your own survival.
And having a small but steady and sufficient income from some other source may give you that freedom.

Part time positions for business founders are again something that is often much easier available in academia than in industry, particularly if the reason for asking for a part-time job is that one wants to found a business in that profession: to academia that is usually not a competitor but a source of pride "that's our former colleague who's now a founder" or, if it's a spin-off, also something that counts in evaluations of the department.
Your situation of founding something totally different from your profession may help you to get an industry part-time job (paid with an industry wage) in parallel to your own business. So if you decide that keeping a foot inside academia isn't for your love of academic research but for practical financial reasons, you may consider a part time job in industry as alternative.

Professional experience in the field of business is an important factor for start-up success
I'd expect your business to be at lower-than-average chance of success (unless someone else in your team has substantial experience in your business) and would therefore keep a "survival" side-job.

Academic career
Last but not least, you'll have to specify what a successful career in academia is for you.
Personally, I like doing research - so for me a lifetime position as a researcher (as opposed to research manager such as professors usually are) would be a successful academic career. You may call that the eternal postdoc.
Even though I certainly do a lot of burocracy as business owner, I most probably would have spent similar amounts of time with grant writing and (other) burocracy had I stayed in academia as "advancing" from postdoc to PI would have been basically unavoidable.
Oh, and I teach (mostly industry clients but also at universities and research institutes) and I still do reseach and method development - in some ways I now have more freedom in that than the academic freedom I experienced in some research institutes. So I still have the parts of academic work that I like most.
What I think is not going to work is at the same time trying to get a startup successfully going and going for a highly competitive academic career (professorship/starting your own academic group - see also What ratio of PhD graduates in STEM fields ultimately end up as (tenured) professors?).

Unrelated business field and academia
This is only hear-say, so please take it as such. I've been told anecdotally by a chemistry professor close to retirement that it is not unusual for people being somewhat burned out/fed up with their profession after finishing their PhD and in consequence running an unrelated business (think pet shop by PhD in chemistry) for a while - until they return to their original profession. I don't recall whether anything was said about returning to academic research vs. working in industry (but a chemist with PhD in industry is likely to do research as well)

I don't have examples for you, but having something on the side while pursuing an academic career is pretty common. Many people are book authors, for example. Both academic books and otherwise. Writing software with the hope of selling it is also pretty common. I've done both, actually.
A fair number of people in finance are active investors also.
But, both academia and running a company with employees is difficult. Both are full time jobs and it may be possible that neither helps much with the other. So, you may need to focus on one or the other as your primary interest and just "dabble" in the other.
Some textbook authors have become millionaires, actually.

Some textbook authors have become millionaires, actually. Some golfers have, too. But most have not.


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Two people with very similar profile for grad school admissions
Is it a problem if two students from the same university with very similar profile (similar number of publications, similar grade range, as well as the same strongest letter writer) apply to the same university for a PhD?
Edit: I have clarified the question in the comments. My main question was that since professors would like to increase diversity of their research groups, would they generally prefer not selecting two equally strong students coming straight from the same undergrad institution in the same year of admission. Also, I am talking about PhD admissions in USA.

Are they applying to do the same project? If not, no, there should not be a problem.

No, what about the other things like hobbies, past experience etc

This premise sounds like an inconscious bias experiment...

I guess I should have clarified that the professors with whom both the students are interested in working with are same. Essentially what I wanted to ask is that since professors would like to increase diversity of their research groups, would they generally prefer not selecting two students coming straight from the same undergrad institution in the same year of admissions.

Does this question happen to involve an instance of the two body problem?

I assume you are asking if the two are in competition with one another. Yes, of course, but they are also in competition with everyone else who applies. If the pool is large then there will, potentially, be a lot of very similar applications.
It is likely, but not required that they get the same result. Both accepted, or both rejected is more likely than only one accepted. But there  is more to admissions than numbers in a spreadsheet and one of the two might be preferred for some reason. Suppose the Fencing Team needs new members, say.
And in a situation in which interviews are used, one of the two could be judged more likely to succeed based on some intangibles of presentation or perceived enthusiasm.
My main point, however, is that, in a good system, everyone is treated as and individual but there is tremendous completion for too few spots.

Specifically with respect to the "desire" for diversity. Not everyone will even have such a desire (worldwide). In some places there are strict laws. But those laws still try to assure, in some way, that people are treated as individuals. And none of the characteristics you mention come near to the concerns of those laws.

My main point of the question was a bit different. I meant to ask that since professors would like to increase diversity of their research groups, would they generally prefer not selecting two equally strong students coming straight from the same undergrad institution in the same year of admission.

"Both accepted, or both rejected is more likely than only one accepted" is true even for independent candidates if acceptance probability is not equal to ½.

@Valentas, yes. Most of the candidates are not at the extreme end of the decision ranking.

Are these people identical twins? Presumably despite having similar “profiles” they are distinct human beings each with their own name, personality, interests, and goals. The superficial fact that they come from the same undergraduate institution seems totally irrelevant from the point of view of a professor or graduate admissions committee.
So basically your question is informed by what appears to be a false premise. As @buffy stated, it is true that the students are obviously in competition with each other, but the point is that they are no more (or less) in competition with each other than they would be if they were applying from different schools but still had similar “profiles”.
In other words, the simple answer to your question is “no”. Except maybe for the situation of actual twins, which may indeed present some unique difficulties (I’ve actually heard of such cases).


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How important is storytelling when submitting a grant application (or even a science paper)?
A recent paper titled “Elements of Successful NIH Grant Applications” https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2315735121 argued that telling a story is key to communicating science especially when submitting a grant application for funding but also when communicating science more generally. Most commentators on the paper strongly agreed. Intriguingly, a few, just as strongly, disagreed. They argued that science is different. Science does not tell stories. It strictly reports observations. Period.
What are the pros and cons of storytelling? Under what circumstances is storytelling a good idea?

"Science does not tell stories. It strictly reports observations. Period." is not correct, science is a pursuit of the best explanation for the observations.  It is about understanding which requires a logical progression of ideas and evaluation against the observations.  That doesn't need a story, but that view of science seems a pretty wrong-headed caricature to me.

Well, once a upon a time, there was a young bright-eyed academic who was about to submit a grant application...

Ironically I don't think the linked paper is a great example of how to use storytelling when communicating science.

This sounds like a question given as an assignment in class. Is it?

@einpoklum ... then they encountered the Land of the Storytellers who told stories about the Land of the Storynontellers who did not tell stories about the Storytellers. And so the young academic learnt a lot about both lands, before they met the powerful Project Magic Officer who explained to them that all they knew was only partial knowledge and they had to find the Magic in themselves. And so, the young academic, enwisened, returned home and happily (or unhappily) wrote grant proposals ever after.

It is not possible to effectively communicate observations without a story. Nobody but the most experienced experts in a field will be able to understand why you did an experiment, and what the data you report mean. It is necessary to tell a story around it that makes it possible for others to understand the context and implications of your observations. It is also necessary to tell a story because -- at least in my view -- papers are also tools to teach others what you have found out, and teaching is not effective if all you do is provide facts.
I will note that I have occasionally come across papers that only present facts in some areas of pure mathematics. These papers generally have very little in terms of introduction, then present the statement of some abstract theorem, and then the proof. Technically, of course, these papers succeed in extending humanity's knowledge, but I have always found that these papers are also elitist because their audience is so small -- very few people who do not have a deep background in a field will be able to understand the point of such papers. What these papers are missing in my opinion is a story.

@DikranMarsupial It's possible that what you call "logical progression of ideas" is what Wolfgang calls "story"

@DikranMarsupial I think that the thing you are describing is what people mean when they say "tell a story". When my supervisors give me feedback on making sure my writing "tells a story", they mean that they want me to present a logical progression of ideas so that each new section makes sense in context of the previous section. E.g. the introduction sets up the ideas necessary so that when I get to the methods, it seems obvious that I chose the methods I did because they follow naturally from the introduction.

@DikranMarsupial It’s a story, not necessarily the story of how you discovered the thing back in the days. A story doesn’t necessarily follow the original chronological or spatial or other order of its underlying events. Stories may have chronological sequences, but they may also have backstory introductions, interludes, callbacks, and many other devices that help the reader digest the raw information underlying it.

@DikranMarsupial I recommend to watch "Memento", but there are tons of stories out there that deliberately ignore or invert the original chronological order.

@DikranMarsupial When I was taught measure theory many years ago, it definitely felt like a story. It was still just a sequence of definitions, theorems and proofs, but the sequence made sense, I could tell that someone had very deliberately and purposefully chosen the order in which to present everything. It felt like we were going somewhere, building something. Years later I still remember it well. Conversely, I've attended an organic chemistry class which consisted in a structure-less list of molecules and their properties. There was no story there, and I've forgotten everything about it.

@DikranMarsupial I think you use the word "story" in a more literal/literary sense that I intend. I think of "story" here as "providing context and understanding to facts". Well written proofs of mathematical theorems often are stories, for example they could read as "In order to prove our assertion, we first tried to use the approach by Smith et al., but it turns out that we could not show the key step because our function spaces are only nearly convex, and one gets stuck in step X. As a consequence, ..." A non-story would be to just move symbols from the left to the right of the = sign.

I would just add here that the originally cited paper is about Science - that is about finding out about the world via empiricism. Pure maths is not empirical - it is purely reasoned. For that reason, i'm not sure that what works for Science and what works for Maths will be the same thing.

@IanSudbery I disagree. A paper that only states a theorem + proof, without any further explanation, is like publishing only a table of temperatures measured at a specific position over time. There is of course value in both, but only the most experienced readers will be able to put the information into context and understand its value (or lack thereof). It's an isolated piece of information. The "story" is doing readers the favor of putting the information in context of other pieces of information.

@wolfgangbangerth this is probably a disciplinary  difference,  but a paper which was only a table of temperatures would never be published in my field. There are data repositories where they could be made available to those that find them useful,  but it wouldn't justify a paper/article. The most common reason a paper/ grant is rejected is "there was no hypothesis". The second most common is " this is purely phenomological and not sufficiently mechanistic" - by which people mean the paper doesn't explain something that was previously unexplained.

@IanSudbery You misunderstand what I was trying to say. I'm saying that a paper that only contains a theorem + its proof should also not be publishable, for precisely the same reason. It doesn't state why anyone should care, because it doesn't embed the facts in their broader context. Only experts will be able to see the context that explains why the information given is relevant and important, and that is no different for theorem+proof than it is for publishing a temperature record.

@WolfgangBangerth, oh, I see. Sorry about that.

I believe at its source most of the disagreement you observe comes from a disagreement about terminology / word choices. The word "storytelling" rubs some scientists the wrong way, as it (to some) comes with a connotation of twisting and suppressing data to fit a specific narrative (or outright making things up - lying). Another word that is often used in a similar context, but just as controversial, is "selling" one's result.
This is not what most scientists mean when they say that storytelling is important to get grants or publications accepted.
What people mean is:

That you need to advocate why your proposed experiment or results are meaningful to a larger question (e.g., in your field of study or society in general). One can propose an infinite number of rigorous scientific studies, why should yours be prioritised over the studies proposed by others? Why should your results be presented in a high-profile conference?
That it is your responsibility as a scientist and author to communicate why people should care about your planned work or existing results.
That it is your responsibility to make it easy for people to understand not only your planned study or results, but also the importance of them. This is most easily done through "stories" (not fairy tales - just clear interpretations of what you plan to find or have found, what they mean, what impact this could have, etc.).

None of these items is particularly controversial, at least in my corner of science. It is widely accepted that a section that discusses potential impact is a natural element of a grant proposal, just as a discussion of results (as opposed to purely presenting results, for example in a table) is a natural element of papers. Even people who disagree strongly with the idea of "storytelling" in science still agree that these sections are important.

TL;DR Science is not a set of facts about the world, it is a process for discovering facts about the world. The best way to write about a process is to tell a story. In fact, that is all a story is.
Even more than a paper, grant writing is an act of persuasion. There are several things you must persuade the reader of: that you can carry out the proposed work, that the proposed work,  if carried out will answer the research question and that the research question is an interesting and valuable question to answer.  This last point is by far the most important thing in a grant proposal.  You must interest and excite the reviewer.  Dull and worthy just isn't going to cut it when only 10% of applications are successful, and panel members have a large stack of grants to read and discuss. More than 10% of grants are feasible. Thus the "story" becomes important for convincing people that the research you want to do is more important than all the other possible research.
But actually the same also applies in science. In science, we don't just collect data willy-nilly, but we capture data to either generate an hypothesis for an unexplained phenomenon, or to test an hypothesis. You must first convince the reader that your research problem is interesting. You must lead your reader through the idea that your hypothesis is reasonable, and then convince them that the decisions you made over how to test that the hypothesis are reasonable. Only then can you present your results.
Linguistics is the study of language - words. But just presenting a dictionary does not make you an expert linguist.

My other answer focused on the need to tell a story to succeed in the competitive aspect of science. But there is another reason.
In my supervision of students, the most consequential discriminator between them is whether they deeply understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. If they don’t understand what led to their current activity, then they don’t really know what they hope to get from it, and they can’t figure out what to do next. Those students who get the “story” can be engaged independent researchers, confidently analyzing results and charting the path of research into the future. Those who don’t get the story are dependent on me to tell them what to do, and they are relatively disengaged because their actions seem, to them, disjointed.
I think we can agree that we want our readers to be engaged.

I remember reading this paper. I was alternately incredulous and impressed that the authors managed to get such a plainly basic experiment into Nature. If I had done that experiment, I would have for sure sent the write-up to some lower tier journal, and it would have barely risen above the noise.
This is the genius of the authors: They recognized the potential of their work, and they sold it. They “told a story” and got their paper into the most prestigious journal around. For that brief moment, they won the game of academia.
The point is that science is not done in a vacuum. There is a community, there are people (with feelings), there are grants, there are grant applications, there is prestige, and there is competition. There are limited resources. If you want to win (a grant), you can’t just communicate the basic components of science: the details, the data, the analysis. You need to sell yourself and your project. You need people to understand how we’ve come to be where we are and how everything you’ve done and plan to do is the most logical, smart, and efficient path forward. You need to tell the story of your work and make your readers believe.