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Can I submit my manuscript to a second journal without receiving withdrawal confirmation from the first journal?
it's a month from the submission of a manuscript of mine in a "World Scientific" journal, but its status is still "Editor Invited". I just sent the editor-in-chief a note to ask about the situation because the editor assignment process is unusually getting long. The editor-in-chief did not answer my inquiry, so I am about to withdraw the paper. Let's say (s)he doesn't confirm my withdrawal request. Will I be ethically authorized to submit my manuscript somewhere else considering that I will keep the withdrawal email (in case someone claims that I hadn't withdrawn it before new submission)?

@AloneProgrammer: I don't want to submit my manuscript in two different journals simultaneously, but I intend to get rid of the first one before engaging with the next one (if you read the question).

"Will I be ethically authorized to submit my manuscript somewhere else considering that I will keep the withdrawal email (in case someone claims that I hadn't withdrawn it before new submission)?" No. I'm not sure about "World Scientific" but withdrawing process in "Elsevier" usually is handled by administrative section of the journal or associate editor, and that should be fairly quick. You contacted EiC, but I'm not sure EiC is the right person to handle this situation. He/She might be a really busy professor, so I suggest to contact administrative section of the journal instead of EiC.

@ndpl: The paper has not yet assigned to an AE after a month. I don't know your patience definition, yet my experience says AE assignment often takes just a week or so, not more.

This is actually a really interesting question as I don't think there's a black and white answer to this. Ethically, a "reasonable" attempt must be made to confirm withdrawal of the manuscript. People will draw the line at different points.
I would argue that one attempt at contact is not sufficient to be considered reasonable. If possible, I would contact the editor by phone as well as email. Check to see if there's a withdrawal protocol through your online account or if there are any additional contact details of committee members.
I would only feel comfortable submitting elsewhere if I had made multiple attempts to contact the journal over a period of 4-6 weeks. But that is just my opinion. I'm interested to see what others think...

Will I be ethically authorized to submit my manuscript somewhere else considering that I will keep the withdrawal email (in case someone claims that I hadn't withdrawn it before new submission)?

No, I think you need to receive the official withdrawal confirmation from the journal, as long as the journal that you have submitted your manuscript is not a predatory journal. I assume it is not predatory cause World Scientific is not that kind of publishers I believe, at least in my own experience with them.
You mentioned that you have contacted the Editor-in-Chief of the journal and he/she did not respond to your inquiry. I think EiC is not the right person to contact in case of withdrawal. I don't have experience with withdrawing a paper in World Scientific, but in my experience with Elsevier, usually this process is handled by associate editor or even administrative section of the journal. If those people also did not respond to your inquiry, I think you need to find a more direct contact way like phone to get in touch with them and see what's the procedure to withdraw the article. If all of these suggestions failed in a timeline of 2 or 3 weeks, I think you need to assume that maybe the journal is indeed a predatory journal.
For the last moment that you want to submit your manuscript somewhere else, please read the current journal's policy and agreement that you agreed upon your submission to find out if you give them your consent to publish your work or not (which I think you did cause otherwise submission to be considered for publication is meaningless...). Cause, if you failed to receive a response from them and if they are indeed a predatory journal, it has a really high chance that at some point in the future, they will publish your work and if you already submitted somewhere else or get accepted in another journal, you may ran into some copyright and dual publication issues with both journals.

That's not a predatory journal, but one of its most reputed ones in its field.

@Pinton If that's not predatory, that should be really easy if you can get in touch with associate editor or someone else in their editorial office. Usually, if you look at the submission confirmation email, you will find the contact information of editorial office or submission associate editor.

@Roboticist That "invited AE" is responsible for handling the scientific aspect of OP's paper and select the reviewers or recommend a decision to EiC. Even if OP sees the status of his/her manuscript as "invited an AE", it does not guarantee that paper is just got stuck at that level. Some journals don't update the status of articles frequently. I had a paper that just went from "With editor" to "Accepted" after more than three months of waiting. Anyway, my purpose from submission AE is a person that handles administrative parts, and not necessarily is the same as "invited AE".

@Roboticist Not necessarily, there are countless journals that name the guy, that even maybe does not hold a PhD, a "submission associate editor". About updating the status: I said some that I know and I publish with them don't update frequently and some others do it, but it's not critical here, that could be cleared if OP asks for withdrawal procedure from editorial office and they will tell OP if it's already under review or they just struggling to find an editor or find a reviewer. These are all just speculations, unless OP asks editorial office.

@Roboticist Look at IOP journals and pick anyone that you like from their journal list and go to "contact us" section. I just picked these three ones for example: https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/0965-0393/page/Contact%20us , https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/2632-2153/page/contact-us , https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/1748-605X/page/Contact_us


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Should I leave the first authorship of our paper to the student who did the project whereas I solved it?
I (as a Ph.D. student) supervised a masters project.
In particular, I defined the problem statement and prepared a sketch of the solution, that is, the steps which had to be done to achieve the solution. The masters student basically followed those steps which were mostly programming implementations. I composed the paper. Now, the paper is ready to be published, and I'm in a dilemma in selecting the first author of the paper.
On the one hand, I feel I am the right one because I solved the critical part of the problem, and the student just implemented what I had already planned. On the other hand, he may want to apply for a graduate position later, and I understand that he would morally expect to be the first author as this paper is his only serious research output. My supervisor left the issue to me by stating that my opinion would be his.
We unfortunately didn't set any specific set of expectations beforehand, particularly regarding papers and authorships.
According to a neutral mind, who most deserves to be the first author?
PS. The field is electrical engineering.

Who actually wrote the paper?

The laying out of initial expectations is a big part of decisions like this, in addition to the actual writing of the paper. If you laid out the problem for them and only advised when they asked for help (and just advise, not considerable "doing"), then it would also be on them to do much of the writing work as well, preferably producing at least a full rough draft - more if this is part of their thesis. On the other side, the initial setup could have been "work with me on this project, I'm here to help and lead, and you can be an author". Hard to tell from only what is written here.

@mmeent: I did compose the paper.

@BrianH: We unfortunately didn't set any specific set of expectations, particularly regarding papers and authorships.

Which field of S.T.E.M. are you publishing in? As others have pointed out, the answer here might be field-dependent. Different communities conclude very different things from author order.

@Roland: Yes. We talked, and he yielded his intention to be the first author.

@PatrickSanan: (Electrical) Engineering

How central to your PhD work is this project? Is it more of a side project to you, or an integral part of your thesis? It seems like you were very involved, so I am trying to gather whether it is more that you've done too much of the master's students' work, or had them tag along with yours. I'm not very familiar with authorship standards in EE, but is "senior author" a thing for you?

@BryanKrause: It was pretty along with my Ph.D. thesis. In fact, I had already thought about the topic and had obtained its theoretical ground based on which the feasibility of the idea was already analyzed and proved. The student had some nice touch during the implementation, yet he basically followed the steps that I depicted for him.

@BryanKrause: If I wanted to get to industry after my Ph.D., I wouldn't hesitate to pass the first-author position to him easily. But, the senior authorship means a lot to me since I will be trying to grab a professorship position in a near future.

@Pinton What I meant by senior authorship is that, in my field, typically the first author is the person who "did the work", and the last author is the person who supervised the work (typically a professor), which often includes setting the general direction. For more senior people, last authorships "count" as much if not more than first authorships; I was asking in case a compromise where you are last author might be appropriate, especially if this is the main research contribution for the masters student.

@BryanKrause: I'm not a professor but a Ph.D. student. So, the last authorship does not count for me like it would for a professor.

Please also remember that most people tend to overestimate their own contribution and underestimate the contributions of others - this goes both for you and the student. Code can be a huge contribution and it is easy to overlook when it was not you doing the programming (how many times have I thought "I could have programmed that in a week" to only discover it took me months). Leadership can also be important and easy to overlook ("She just talks to me once in a while and I do all the work - how does she deserve first authorship?").

@Pinton In my field that's not necessarily true, a PhD student could still benefit from a last authorship. But I'll trust it is for yours.

what does your professor say?

Well to play the bad one here, he should not get first author of the paper nor a Master degree for a problem that was basically pre-solved for him.... I understand that this is not uncommen, but I find it rather puzzeling that this is a thing. From my understanding(and what I expierienced first hand in EE) the advisor layed the problem and it was up the student to get it working, while the advisor may advise if necessary or to guide the project in a useable direction...

In five years time when it's referred to in another paper as e.g. "O'Flute and MacNutty 2012" who will know (or care) who did exactly what ?  This seems a mountain out of a molehill - you needed each other to complete this.  You may also be under-estimating the implementation contribution.  Dice throw to decide.

It keeps amazing me how researchers keep worrying about things like author order, which should be irrelevant

Several people have mentioned noting in a footnote equal contribution. Should you pursue this route, you ironically need to determine what order to actually write the names in. In CS this would typically be alphabetical or determined randomly. The footnote should mention how the ordering was determined, e.g., Authors contributed equally and are listed in [alphabetical/randomized] order."

It would, perhaps, be generous of you to do so, but not necessarily wrong. In math and CS, listing authors alphabetically would probably be appropriate with little or no attention to "first" authorship.
But an academic being seen as generous is not a bad thing. Too many questions here are just the opposite, demanding first authorship, sometimes properly and sometimes not. But such generosity is more typical in a professor with an established reputation than in a current grad student.
But a serious consideration would entail looking at whether the student made a significant intellectual contribution to the work. If not, then first authorship is probably overly generous and might set a bad precedent in the mind of that student.
I'm with your professor on this. Your call. But the advice in comments (BrianH) on setting expectations at the start is good - even essential.

Is there any downside to "† these authors contributed equally"?

@Mehrdad - "Co-Authored by Mr. X and Ms. Y"?

@Valorum: I mean, the example I gave is one that I've seen before, but sure, if that's common and applicable then why not.

whether the student made a significant intellectual contribution to the work. If not... — ...then the student shouldn't be an author at all!

@JeffE,  for some value of "significant".

I work in an engineering field, and my PhD students often do what you described. In my opinion, you should be the first author because

you have set the problem;
you have set the outline of the solution and supervised the student;
you have composed the paper.

To grant the first authorship to a master student, she usually needs to

at least contribute to the development some novel ideas;
take most of the writing burden.

I'm a bit less concerned about the actual writing than many are. Sometimes a paper is improved if someone with better writing skills puts the actual words down. The contribution can be in editing and discussions about making the presentation accurate, while the "wordsmith" does the actual composition.

I agree that writing is a key determining factor. Everyone in STEM always moves on to the next exciting idea, but someone has to get the paper done (often over a period of months in dealing with revisions and reviewers).

@Buffy exactly. I now work in industry, but we published a paper describing a scientific tool we developed. Since I was the only person available with the academic experience necessary to write the paper, I wrote the entire thing. However, since my contribution to the actual tool was quite small, I put myself smack in the middle of the authors (in my field, the first and last positions are important), in the least important position, despite having written the entire paper myself.

@Buffy That is true when the person writing is an experienced paper writer. However, when a student does the writing, he typically is not that experienced, and considerable effort will have gone into the writing, giving significant weight to the first author question.

I’ve known excellent researchers that couldn’t present or explain their work in a way that would pass a peer review. I’ve also had average PhD students that published in top journals because they could write, present, and defend the work excellently. If someone contributes to the novelty and writes the paper spending months in revisions, they deserve to be first author. Even if they didn’t do the majority of the scientific contribution.

@Buffy: To make any statement about how important or unimportant "writing" is, it would be useful to know what exactly is meant by "writing". Your comment, and most of those following yours, seem to assume "writing" in the narrow sense of putting ideas into words. But seeing that the pure "problem and solution" rarely make a full paper on their own, it might be that very "writing" part that adds much of the other stuff, such as embedding the problem and solution into practical use cases, cross-linking everything with other research, or bringing the custom solution into a standardized form.

Since the work would not exist at all without the contributions of either one of you, in my view, it would be entirely appropriate to share first authorship.  This is done by placing an asterisk by each of your names pointing to a footnote indicating "these authors contributed equally".
This reflects positively on both of you and does not detract from the contributions of either one.  You can both list the paper in the "first author publications" section of your CV, and it costs nothing to do.
Also, in my experience, one cannot usually implement an entire solution of any complexity without contributing intellectually to it in a significant way.
In my field first authorship normally goes to whoever actually did the work.
However, my opinion has always been that credit is a thing best distributed as widely as possible, within reason of course.

I'm not sure if "the paper would not exist without either of you" is a good measuring stick. Most of my collaborative papers "would not exist" without any of the co-authors (I would argue otherwise the collaboration wasn't very fruitful), yet there is usually some fairly clear distinction between the amount of contribution between different authors.

The paper would also not exist without OP's parents, but that doesn't mean they should be made co-authors.

If you defined the problem and did all of the mentoring, you could argue that you should be the last author on the paper (in some respects, a more prestigious position than first author as it traditionally represents the mentor/advisor).  Is your advisor OK with that arrangement?

Regardless of what my advisor thinks, I don't believe that the last position would benefit me as a graduate student.

This answer assumes that we are not talking about the Master's Thesis of the student here, just some project during your and his time at uni, which stems from the line of inquiry *you* are following in your PhD studies.
According to your question and subsequent comments, you clearly did the intellectual and editorial work, presumably you wrote all natural language sentences; the student clearly provided the (relatively) menial task of writing the code. Without the student's contribution, your paper might still have valid meaning as a purely theoretical piece (or you could have done the programming yourself if you had the time). Without your contribution, there would be nothing at all. You were the "owner" here.I also don't get the vibe that you had regular meetings with the student on an equal footing, as a "sparring partner", but it was a clear top-down relationship.
Of course the student wants to have primary authorship, but that does not change the fact that he has not been the primary author. If I understood you right he authored nothing of the paper, only the source code - which probably is not the thing that's printed in publication and consumed by avid readers.
If you are not inclined to deny his request, then you can of course play the "equal authorship" card (which would certainly be nice of you, but... not correct, neither factual not moral). Unless you have formal limitation of what to write there, you could say something like ("$ME (first author), $THEM (programming)") or something along these lines. But in all honesty, you should put it the way it happened. You did author the paper, so you are the primary author. You can still go out of your way to praise the efforts of the student in a personal foreword, which may have equally large benefit for the student.
At the end, the advice of your supervisor is the most important: you have to decide. I could well imagine that he intends it as an exercise for yourself, to work on your moral compass and/or leadership skills, and maybe to drive home the point that these kinds of things should be specified beforehand.
(By the way, I think "moral" is the wrong word here; "ethics" would be the one. And in this context, above all, this is about honesty and objectivity, not about favours. That should be the nucleus of your own answer...)

I just strongly disagree with the notion that source code is a secondary contribution. In many cases (not sure about the actual situation of the OP), source code is IMHO the actual scholarship. The devil is in the details, but I would never assume that if someone wrote all the code but no words of the paper, they do not deserve first authorship. For one, it is much easier to recover a paper when you have the source code than to recover source code if you have the paper.

@MartinModrák, sure... I studied CS myself, and in my diploma thesis did some research plus coding - the importance was objectively certainly on an equal footing. I am not saying that the student should get no credit; it just seems to me that OP seems to be afraid to value his own efforts enough... hard to tell over the 'net, OP will know if that fits his bill or not.

Paper won’t exist without results from code, admitting that the purpose of implementing the algorithm was to support theoretical claims. By the structure of the paper, results from code implementation does account for at least the Experiments and Setup parts(how you would know that the idea actually does generate a publication without the source code generated results). If was purely a theoretical paper than you wouldn’t need code to generate a publication ....

When in doubt, go with alphabetical order.
Having said that, you (OP) said in one of the comments:

Regardless of what my advisor thinks, I don't believe that the last position would benefit me as a graduate student.

If your advisor is even 'hinting' that you should take last position, then why are you even arguing?

"If your advisor is even 'hinting' that you should take last position" - are they? The OP just writes "My supervisor left the issue to me by stating that my opinion would be his." Assuming that the OP has told their supervisor approximately the same lines of reasoning as they have explained here, the supervisor is either just as undecided as the OP (but will support whatever decision the OP makes), or 'hints' that the OP should indeed place themselves as the first author (because the OP feels they are "right").

In the question, OP says "supervisor said 'it's up to you'", which in academia  sometimes means "it's up to you", and sometimes means "well, if after all I've said, you're not going to listen to me, I'm not going to waste my time further, on your own head be it". The reason I wonder if it's the 2nd meaning is that in a comment on S.Burts's answer, OP says "Regardless of what my advisor thinks, I don't believe that the last position would benefit me as a graduate student."

Aah, right, I now realize that statement in itself can also be read as the advisor hinting at putting the OP at the last position. You're right in that case and with the information given, it's totally open to us which way things are.

In my field (biology) usualy the author who actually writes the paper is the first author. The one who leads the writing, the one who gathers comments from others and is responsible for the final text. So according to this it should be you.
Could it be that you have a fear of claiming what belongs to you? Out of a fear of disappointing him.
Some journals do allow to specify the equal contribution of first two authors.

source: Stack Exchange

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How can assistant professors (without industry experience) become professional engineer in Canada?
I recently asked a question about the acceptance of postdoc years to be counted as professional experience for a professional engineer application (in Ontario, Canada). The answer I got (partially) reads as follows:

Academic experience is not usually considered "professional", although
I also assume there is a way for very experienced academics to become
members. In any case, actual assessment is done on a "competency"
basis where you write a summary of your experience and they assess
your suitability. I would expect that 24 months of academic experience
will not give you the professional competency they expect.

I know many assistant professors (without any industrial experience but some years of postdoc) who had become professional engineers around a year after starting their tenure-track positions. So, does one know how this works in Ontario, Canada, if postdoc really is not taken for the required 48 months?

Is your question related to the requirement that you register as a professional engineer, to be an engineering academic in Canada, e.g. https://uwaterloo.ca/engineering/faculty-and-staff/professional-registration ? When I was on the job market a decade ago and considering north-of-the-border openings, I remember finding that there was a procedure for getting PE accreditation for junior academics; I don’t remember the details. Possibly a senior faculty member was detailed as the “supervisor” to meet the regulation.

@RLH: Yes, it is. I failed to find such a procedure. I shall be grateful if you share any link regarding details, if possible.

I can't find anything more than the UWaterloo link in my previous comment. If you already have an established relationship with a university, I would contact the equivalent office to the one named on the UWaterloo page. If you're at an earlier stage in a faculty search, you could ask about the process -- this is something that will come up even for most domestic candidates, so being aware of it and bringing it up doesn't put you at a disadvantage that didn't already exist.

Found something. Turning it into an answer now

Actually, I think this should really be answered by someone with actual experience in the Canadian engineering academic sector. This document seems to match what you were looking for, but may be out of date. See 2.4 and 3.1 in particular. https://www.peo.on.ca/sites/default/files/2019-09/RequiredExpForLicensing.pdf

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


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Is there any chalk talk in the case of a campus interview associated with a Canadian STEM-based tenure-track position?
In addition to the related questions in this website, I have been reading about chalk talk (e.g., here and here). My assumption was that this is the common routine everywhere in the North America for all kind of positions. However, today I asked a question about this from my PI (at a Canadian institute), and she said she has recently attended two (STEM-based) search committees in none of which they had a chalk talk (like asking the applicant to get to a board, writing his vision, aims, discussing them, answering questions in between, and overall defending his candidacy by selling themselves to the committee). Alternatively, she said they had something like a "round table" during which questions where kind of not too formal, and there were no board, or anything particularly focusing on the format expressed in the references above. My advisor stated that, to her estimation, the main focus of the committee to decide about an applicant, was on their teaching and research demos, rather than their post-launch private session with the committee.
Now, I am wondering whether or not the chalk talk notion does exist at all in the case Canadian (STEM-based) tenure-track campus interviews? Overall, what should one expect about the mechanics of private interviews of such positions?

Whatever the norms may be, variation is always possible, so always be sure to get a detailed schedule for the interview, and ask about any expectations that are not 100% clear.

I think "STEM" is too broad. I am a US-based mathematician who has been on both sides of job interviews; the "chalk talks" described in your links aren't something familiar to me, although many of the same questions might be asked. Moreover, in math a "chalk talk" describes any talk given at the chalkboard instead of over slides, and I have seen successful candidates give their formal research presentation this way. Overall, I'd suggest you seek out more narrowly tailored advice, in addition to what your advisor told you. Best wishes to you.

Also, see here: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/117603/

@academic: By "STEM", I particularly meant "E"ngineering.

Yes, there are definitely some Canadian tenure-track campus interviews in STEM fields that will have exactly the kind of chalk talk that you've heard about.
Yes, as your supervisor's comments show, there are definitely faculty interviews that do not have such a formalized chalk talk part.
Whether or not a particular interview falls into the first or second category will be clearly communicated to the candidate before the interview. In either case, your preparation will be fairly similar. You will need to have well thought through plans for your future work once you arrive at University X and you need to be able to communicate them clearly. The committee will certainly probe the details of your proposed research program and wants to see how you will fit into the department.


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Will the university know I've submitted this assignment at my previous university?
I was studying at a university that shut down during Covid. I decided to move home and continue my studies with a different university. Some of my already completed units I got RPL for, some I did not. I have an assignment at my new university that is basically the same as an assignment I did at my previous university. If I submit this assignment to my new university, is there any way they will be able to tell that I've already used it before at a previous university?

“I am considering committing academic misconduct. What are the chances that I will get caught?” Why should we help you with such a question? The only reasonable answer is “Don’t commit misconduct.”

If you submit exactly the same thing that will likely be considered self-plagiarism. If you still remember how to do it and solve it without resorting to the previous homework you will still be fine. In most cases going over previous notes (your own notes) will not constitute any honor code violation, but the only one that can tell you if that is ok or not is the instructor for that class, as that is not explicitly dealt with in any university's honor code.
All that aside, your intent clearly is to do something you think is wrong and not get caught, so it is clearly wrong and you know it.


text:
Submitting to a workshop after journal submission
I have recently resubmitted my manuscript after major revisions to a mid-lower tier open access journal.
I am interested in submitting this same manuscript as a proposal to a workshop. On the workshop's website, they say that is acceptable to submit previously published work to the workshop as long as it is from a non-machine learning venue, which I comply with.
On the journal's website, they do not specifically mention workshop papers. They note that any conference papers must be significantly expanded before publication.
I was wondering if it was ethical to submit to the workshop? I feel like this workshop would be a good way to get feedback on how to further develop the manuscript.

Under which license would the paper be published?

@Snijderfrey the paper would be published under the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license. I would retain the copyright for the paper.

If you publish the same manuscript at a workshop, you would be breaking an explicit or implicit agreement with the journal, which expects exclusive rights to the manuscript once they accept it for publication. It seems to me that if you wanted to "develop the manuscript", you should have waited with the submission to a journal.
If you think that the publishing in the workshop is beneficial for the journal, (as I assume you do) then you can ask the journal editor for permission.
There might be ways around this, like rewriting the manuscript and giving it a different slant, but you have probably run out of time for this.

"which expects exclusive rights to the manuscript once they accept it for publication" This depends on the license agreement. The paper in question would be published open access, and in such a case copyright is often retained by the authors.


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Would it be helpful to submit more letters of recommendation than required for a US PhD application in my situation?
I am applying to several grad schools in the US for a PhD in math and most of them require three letters of recommendation. None of them mention that only three letters or no more than three letters are to be submitted. I have specifically emailed them to figure out if they will randomly pick three letters from the five that I plan to submit and discard the rest and so far two have confirmed that I can submit more than three and all will be reviewed. This, combined with the fact that they allow you to mention more than three referees in the online application, rather than limit it to just three makes me wonder if it would be acceptable for me to submit five referee names.
While I have requested three of my senior professors with whom I have had the most interaction, for the letters, I also have two younger professors who have agreed to submit their letters for my application. I have communicated with them a lot regarding my solutions to mathematics problems and for discussing other ideas in my field of interest, sometimes several times a day through messaging apps and due to this I believe they would have something distinctively valuable to say about my abilities and have a different perspective than the senior professors. My masters did not have a thesis component and it is difficult to obtain good research experience in Algebraic Topology in my country so these letters are the closest I have as evidence of research potential. Also one of those senior professors had missed one of my letter deadlines before so he might miss a few this time around as well, in which case the extra letters could help. While it is in general discouraged to try to compensate for weaknesses in one area of your application with excess material in another area, could it help in my specific case?
Similar: Submitting more than three letters of recommendation to a math PhD program

If three is the minimum, 5 is a great idea (especially if they don't all arrive on time), 7 is getting to be a bit much, and 20 is likely to be disqualifying.

@BenVoigt Thanks. I just wanted to confirm that I am correctly interpreting require three to mean at least three in this context.


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Guides on writing a good Letter of Recommendation when the professor asks for a "Rough Draft"
I'm applying to grad schools in the US for a PhD in math and have managed to convince five professors to write a letter of recommendation for me. One of my referees requested me to send a "rough draft" of the LOR after mentioning that she's very busy currently due to exams and "would modify it accordingly".
I've read several posts here that indicate that this is a bad sign, but I've met her in person recently and did well in her class and it seems that she is genuinely willing to write a strong LOR, but is just hard pressed for time. I think the best course of action here would be to provide her with a list of relevant questions and topics that she could address, while also politely stating that my direct involvement in the writing process would be unethical or unproductive as these are meant to be confidential.
Kindly let me know if there are any good guides out there for writing a LOR so that I can prepare such a questionnaire for her, as most of the guides that come up are about how to ask for a LOR. If this would not be the best course of action, then kindly let me know how to handle this situation. She is number 3 on my list by seniority and a lot of universities ask for 3 main and 2 supplemental LORs. Would it be wise to swap her with a supplementary letter writer who has been very helpful and involved in my application process?

Have you read this one: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/29041/19607 If you want recommendations for guides, that sounds like a shopping question, and I would start with a web search.

My suggestion is that you give her an outline, rather than a draft. In the outline mention what you think are the important points, not just in your immediate relationship with her but overall. But don't neglect to include some personal 'interaction' material to remind her.
I've had students ask me for letters after a long gap (not your case, of course) where I generally remember them as good students with potential, but forget the details. I've asked them for such to help me write a better, less general, letter.
Sort the outline points in order of importance as you see them. Add a few personal details if you like.
The reason for an outline and not a draft is that she will use her own wording, making it more authentic.
If that doesn't work for her then migrate your outline into a draft.

I do not think this is a bad sign: professors are overwhelmed with tasks, among them writing reference letters. It often happened to me that a professor agreed to submit a reference letter, but that I had to write it myself (context: Western Europe) - after them revising and approving it, of course.
To build on Buffy's answer, I would even suggest that you submit both an outline (to show the professor what are the important points and requirements for the letter) and a draft (so that the professor can use your wording to save time). If that does not work for them, they will let you know.


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Calling for a new round of applications for a position, when the shortlisted people of the previous round have not yet been even interviewed?
I am invited to an interview for a (STEM) tenure-track position at a prestigious Dutch university. After the deadline, which was months ago, the job advertisement had been removed from their website. But, I have noticed that the job description with a new deadline (in two months) is just added again to their website while my interview is scheduled for the day after tomorrow!
What does that mean to call for a new round of applications for a position, when the shortlisted people of its previous round have not yet been even interviewed?

We can only speculate but you can ask the committee. Post an answer here after your visit. Good luck!

I'd say, hope for the best but brace for the worst. The worst is they decided nobody on the short list was suitable. The best is, they decided to hire two people instead of one.

Might be that they're looking for two people. How do you know that the new ad is for the same position as yours?

@WolfgangBangerth: Everything, such as the job description title and text as well as its reference number, are the same as the call I  applied for.


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PhD admissions: master degree university ranking or additional research experience
First of all I'd like to say that I'm aware that questions are not supposed to result in opinion based answers or discussions. However, with the experience in academic settings that many of the members have here, I still think my question can be answered rather straightforwardly.
I am a engineering student that, after having done a bachelor at university "A" and after having done an extra-curricular internship, is now looking for a master track. After my master track I am sure that I want to pursue a PhD (this will be important).
In my country I have two options for for rather identical master tracks:

Pursue a master at university "A" (my bachelor university) where I was asked to apply for the universities honours track.
Pursue a master at university "B" which is significantly more expensive

University "A" has a QS rating for my specific study in the lower end of the top 100 while university "B" is in the top 10.
After my master's I want to apply for a PhD at some of the top universities outside of my own country (top 10's for my specific field of interest, I have specific universities in mind) and I am therefore looking at the best approach to make this possible.
The question therefore comes down to:

Assuming identical master track (differences are small) and identical GPA (4.0/4.0) after graduation, should I aim for the higher ranked university or should I aim for that university at which I can do the honours track which result in more research experience and personal/professional development

Or worded differently:

For PhD admission, what is weighted more severely: a higher ranked university or an honours track

I assume that I'll get a LoR from my thesis supervisor at either university


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What to do when a professor agrees to write a recommendation letter but doesn’t?
I’m applying to grad school and two weeks ago I asked three people for recommendation letters, two from employers and one from the professor. There’s no specific deadline, but I’m hoping to get accepted quickly in order to be eligible to start classes in the fall. Now, my entire application is complete, except for the one recommendation from my professor. I sent a follow-up email, to which she said that she’ll complete it in the next two days, which was great. But it’s now been a week since that email, and nothing’s been submitted. I sent an email responding to that saying thank you and offering more info if necessary, and have not heard anything back. What should I do? Should I wait, email her again, or ask someone else? I have some other people I can ask, but the problem is that I have no way of accessing the link as the university sends out the link with the application. I don’t mind waiting at all, but my concern is that if the professor decided to back out of it and I have to ask someone else, I want to give the new person as much time as possible by sending them info now. Help?

substitute the word professor in the title by human and this question "suddenly" becomes totally off-topic (anyway asked every 3 days here) and solvable by common sense ;-) btw professors are only human :-)

Can you clarify if you actually have helpful advice or not? What should I do? I don’t really care about how useless or “off-topic” you think I am for asking this. I understand that professors are human and I’m not holding anything against her. I would just like to know what to do as the next steps from here because, as human as she is, my grad school will only wait for so long.

@user847982 - if this is "asked every 3 days here", why not close it as a duplicate? I too thought the same and looked through many related questions with similar titles, but none that could fairly call a duplicate (maybe I missed it).

@cag51 Yes, before I posted this I kept searching and searching for an answer as I usually don’t like to be the one to post these questions, but I couldn’t find anyone who had the same situation as mine. Others all involved professors who never agreed to the recommendation letter in the first place.

Ask someone else now.  Provide a specific date, e.g. June 10, by which you need the reference and explain why.  You can almost certainly add another referee to your application.  If, for whatever reason, you cannot add another referee, cancel the one that's outstanding as soon as another professor has agreed.
If you can add a referee without canceling one, write to the professor who has already agreed and give her a deadline, also explaining why.  (NB: Professors are necessarily pretty good about meeting deadlines, and often abysmal at those things that do not have deadlines.  This from extensive research on a sample of one, namely Yours Truly.)

Thank you so much!! I will definitely try that. Your advice offered me a lot of relief :)

Is it possible to talk to her in person or by phone? Personal contact is better than "nagging" e-mails. Further, this will give you the opportunity to stress how urgent and stressful this is for you, and will allow you to gauge her reaction and maybe you can better assess if she will come through or if she is looking for an escape.
If this is not possible, then I think you should you should write to her with something like this:

Dear Professor, Sorry to pester you, I know you are busy, but I need to ask for an estimate on this letter of recommendation. Do you think you'll be able to submit it by [Tuesday]? If not, or if I don't hear from you, I'll have to look for another recommender. Regards, --Name

And then on [Tuesday] you reply to your own mail with the below (or you can jump straight to this, up to you)

Following up on this. I appreciate your stated willingness to write a letter of recommendation, but given that you have not been able to do so after several reminders, I think it would be best if I found another recommender. Thanks anyway. Regards, --Name

Of course, you might want to make sure you have another recommender lined up before you wave off this professor.

Thanks so much! This is very helpful :) I unfortunately do not have her contact info via phone, so I’ll look into those sample emails you provided me. Thanks again for all your help! :)


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Grad schools in which countries, besides the US, allow you time to figure out your research topics?
I am applying for a PhD in Math at US grad schools mainly because they allow you one or more years of coursework to figure out your research interests and potential advisors. Are there any other countries that allow you this opportunity outside of the US? I have an MSc that was purely coursework based without a thesis component and while I'm certain of the subfield I'd like to work in, I still need more time to figure out the specific topics of my research and create a research proposal.
From what I've read here and here Europe seems to be on the opposite side of this spectrum. Are there any (preferably English speaking) countries that are closer to the US in this regard?

This isn't a duplicate, but see: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/176908/75368, though it is more about the application process.

@Buffy Thanks, I've gone through it already and mentioned it in my post.

It might vary even between universities. That said, I am doing mine in Israel. I had to choose an advisor when applying (but this is for my university, I know that e.g. in the Weizmann institute, they do rotations in the 1st year) but I only had to submit a research proposal after 18 months into the PhD.

I don't know if there is another country that has this or not, but as for the US, some universities give you a lot more flexibility than others. Make sure to contact current PhD students and ask before applying/accepting. Don't assume you will have all the freedom you want just because the university is in the US.

This has as much to do with the specific project and its circumstances as it does with the country.
In my own country, the UK, some projects begin life clearly defined: "The appointed student will use methods x,y, and z to determine whether A and B are affected by C". That isn't to say that the project might not change and evolve over 3 years, but it is clearly set out to begin with. This is perhaps more common in STEM subjects, where one or more PhDs might form part of the research for a larger project.
Other projects are on more general topics, where it is expected that the student will narrow their interests and more clearly define the project during the first 6-9 months.
Something to note is that no time is "allowed" for this - it eats into the time available (usually 3 or 3.5 years). So in some senses this is less flexible than the US approach.

US grad schools mainly because they allow you one or more years of coursework

They require coursework.  "Allow" is the wrong word.

to figure out your research interests

That's not the purpose of the coursework.  You may be allowed to take time to decide your research topic, but that does not mean you should.  The most successful PhD students will have a plan for completing their PhD before starting it.

Are there any other countries that allow you this opportunity outside of the US?

It's normal for research projects to evolve over time.  I do not think there is any PhD program that would be exempt from that.
The flexibility available to a PhD student is based primarily on funding, not the country.

I disagree, at least in principle: at my R1 state univ in the U.S., in mathematics, we do promote the idea that, of course, getting more information from a year or two of forward-looking informative coursework, before deciding on a thesis direction, is very wise.  The coursework is not meant to be "filtering"... the word "requirement" is misleading...

@paulgarrett, my experience is the same as yours, however, I've recently learned (discussion on meta) that math may be an outlier on several dimensions of study and research. In particular, serious (publishable) undergraduate research seems to be rare in math, but much less so in other disciplines. So, this answer doesn't resonate for math, but it probably does for others. The OP is, of course, asking about math.

I don't want to downvote your answer just because I disagree, but nothing you said resonates with me. I studied in the US and work in Europe. The US system is by far more flexible than the European system. Universities do "allow" you to take courses beyond their requirements (which in some cases is minimal). They do encourage you to figure out your interests by taking courses and even by rotating between research groups. And in the European system, the time is tight and the research project is more or less fixed at least by topic.

@stochastic I do not believe you that the project is fixed by topic.  The project is fixed by which topics have funding.  If there's funding, the student can switch projects, though it may be extremely inconvenient.  Perhaps they have to change universities and start over.  PhD students are not prisoners in Europe.


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Is redacting the names of other grad schools I'm applying to in my unofficial GRE and TOEFL score report acceptable?
I've been asked to upload these reports in the admissions form but both of them combined mention names of several of the US math grad schools I'm applying to for Fall 2023. I've read in other posts here that sharing that information is not necessary and hence I've declined to answer questions regarding other places I'm applying to in the application form. Would it be considered okay if I redacted these school names and mentioned that it was done to hide private information unrelated to the scores or would it be considered "tampering" with the score report?

Why? I mean, all schools know you are applying elsewhere. Nobody is going to pay attention to the list of names.

How do you think it is advantageous to fail to supply information that is asked for? It makes you seem a bit paranoid, actually.

@Buffy I took the advice mentioned here: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15842/why-do-graduate-school-application-forms-ask-applicants-to-name-the-other-school and https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5446/phd-application-asking-what-other-insitution-i-am-applying-to-how-to-answer

@JonCuster I took the advice mentioned here: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5446/phd-application-asking-what-other-insitution-i-am-applying-to-how-to-answer and https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15842/why-do-graduate-school-application-forms-ask-applicants-to-name-the-other-school

Note your situation is a little different - they aren't asking you, it is some additional information that slips through. And, just because you have listed schools does not mean you will actually apply to all or any of them. Schools that second-guess their decisions based on random scraps of information are going to get what they deserve.


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Which section of the GRE-General is more important for a math PhD application?
I just finished my second attempt at the GRE General after a 2.5 month interval and my Verbal score suffered due to an unscheduled bathroom break and me thinking that that verbal section was for their research purposes and wouldn't be scored. I got 156 in Verbal and 168 in quant and I expect 5 or 5.5 in my essays. For a PhD math admission committee would this score be preferred over my previous score of 161 verbal, 164 quant and 4.5 essay, even though the total is one less?
I already have a 115/120 TOEFL ibt score that could somewhat cover for my poor verbal score here. Also, my GRE subject test in math didn't go too well and while the results are still awaited, I think this would give me another reason to prefer my latest GRE score with higher quant marks.
I've chosen to report both scores to all the universities but some of them ask for one set of unofficial scores listed by the student in the application. So which ones should I choose to mention?

These differences are so small that it's not really likely to matter.

@AlexanderWoo Am I correct in assuming that Quant scores would be more important in this scenario for phd math than verbal scores? I do fear that 156 verbal might be too low and possibly put me under the cut off for some schools so the one with 161 verbal might be safer to mention in the applications, even though ets will send them both scores later.


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Is it necessary to mention that you discontinued your BS at one place if you have a BS from another place, in your PhD math application?
I am applying to several US grad schools for a PhD in Math for fall 2023. After my schooling I got admitted to a prestigious research institute (say X) in my country for a BS with double honors. I had several financial, health and other family issues back then which affected my mental health and thus my performance in that program. Eventually I failed to fulfil the criteria for promotion and decided to discontinue the program after a year and a half. I did not receive any official transcripts or degrees from this institution. After that I completed a BS, MA and MS degrees in math. Due to those persistent issues, I did not do well in my BS and MA programs but since things have improved dramatically recently, I have done very well in my MS course, my GRE and TOEFL exams and have five strong letters of recommendation from my MS professors.
Now, I mentioned about X in the academic history section, the coursework list and my SOP/PS for some of my applications and one grad school is demanding marksheets of all work done at X. I have contacted X to see if they can provide me with the necessary documents and am yet to hear from them. I have a few options that I can choose from for my future applications, and I need some help figuring out which is the best one:

If X gives me an official statement that they cannot provide marksheets since they don't keep records of students who discontinue a program (unlikely), then I can keep mentioning X in all those three places in the application form and provide the grad schools the statement that X cannot provide marksheets. This would allow me to have the benefits of saying that I studied at a prestigious institute for a year and a half without the drawbacks of showing my poor marks. I can't possibly request X to provide me with the statement instead of the marksheets if they have the records, can I?

If X gives me the partial marksheets then I could:

a) Do the same as in 1 but suffer the consequences of showing my poor marks and try to explain the reasons in my SOP. However, most of the good schools have strict word limits and it's difficult to explain this complex issue there with short, generic statements so I'm not sure if they'd understand.
b) Not mention X anywhere in my application since I already have a BS from another place to satisfy their eligibility requirement for a bachelor's degree. But would this be considered unethical since I'm technically not sharing my full academic history? Most of the application forms ask for "degree-granting" institutions and since I didn't receive a degree here, I could choose not to mention X. I could similarly choose to omit any mentions of X from the coursework list and SOP.
Kindly help me figure out the best course of action here. Several of my deadlines are on December 15, so I need to decide before that.

See: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/176908/75368

You will need to check the requirements of the institutions to which you apply, but every U.S. college or university that I know about requires transcripts from all prior post-secondary schools you've attended.  That means you will not only have to mention institution X, you will have to request transcripts from X.
The conjecture about "degree-granting" institutions does not help you.  If X grants degrees to anyone, then they're a degree-granting institution.  The fact that you did not earn a degree at X is irrelevant.
Finally, note that falsifying an application is generally considered grounds for dismissal from a program.  So if you fail to mention X, get admitted, but then get found out, you are likely to be dismissed from your Ph.D. program.

This helps a lot! I was almost about to remove all mentions of X from three of my applications and submit them. From now on I'll always mention X and provide the grad schools whatever documents X provides me: partial transcripts or an official statement that transcripts may not be ordered. I hope I can still email another school that I submitted my application to and provide them information about X and hope that they can still include it.

@ZSMJ  For what it may be worth, most schools and most admission committees will give far more weight to your recent performance than to what may have happened in the distant past.


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How common are online interviews for international applicants to a PhD math program in the US?
I have applied to several US grad schools for a math PhD and I wanted to know how common online interviews for international applicants are. One department that put me on their primary waitlist has told me that there are no interviews if toefl scores are adequate. My toefl ibt score of 115/120 puts me above the cutoffs for all the schools I've applied to but there are discrepancies in my record like low BSc and MA GPA and gap years which are in contrast with my high MSc GPA, GRE scores and possibly the contents of my letters of recommendation.
Do these factors increase the likelihood of an online interview and if so, would they be asking about my understanding of the basic mathematical concepts from all areas, ask me to solve difficult problems in my area of interest or be interested in checking my fluency in English and my justifications for those discrepancies? This information would help me decide how to best utilize my time in the coming few months.
I've read similar posts here about other fields but I wanted to know if things are different for a Math PhD.

In the US, every university is different.

Every university has its own system. But yes, interviews are common, especially if there are questions about a candidate such as their language skills or discrepancies about their grade history.
I think it is unlikely that anyone is going to ask you specific math problems to solve in such an interview. But they may ask you about your previous classes, test your understanding of mathematical concepts (more than your ability to solve concrete problems).


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Is it better to merge my SOP and PS into a single essay or just join the two files one after the other to create a single file?
I'm applying to grad schools in the U.S. for a Ph.D. in mathematics and I recently read about the key differences between an SOP(Statement of Purpose) and a PS(Personal Statement) after noticing a few universities requiring both separately. My question is for the universities that only ask for one statement and/or use the two words interchangeably, can I just add the two statements one after the other to create a single pdf file? While I wish to keep the language in the sop more formal and explain what my current and future plans are with this degree and why I'd make a good researcher, I'll be using the PS to be slightly less formal and talk more about my life experiences and the role they've played in developing my interests in my field as well as explain the gaps and shortcomings in my CV.
Ideally, I would like to keep these separate but for the universities that require only a single SOP, should I expect that they're just not interested in my PS or that they are using the words interchangeably and they want me to combine details form both letters into a single one, instead of appending two letters together?

It is impossible to say whether any given university uses them interchangeably, though it is likely that some do.
Actually, I'd suggest that you write three documents; an SoP, a PS, and a combination that includes all important elements. I'd also suggest that you tailor these for each application so that they are a bit more specific in each case.
Appending one to the other seems like a poor option, though.
Consider that some universities will also look at these as a sort of writing sample.

You're right. Merely appending the two files together might come across as a time saving measure and portray the applicant as lazy or uncommitted. Also, are there universities where including personal information in your essay would be considered inappropriate if they only ask for an SOP? I would very much like to include some such details to explain the gaps and shortcomings in my CV.

This is good advice also for academic job applications. Having two or three versions of teaching and research statements is necessary because different schools have different focuses (R1 vs R2 vs teaching oriented universities with or without research expectations) and perhaps page limits. It's a little annoying, but it's better to create something new rather than butcher a great document.


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Best website for giving details of a book mentioned in a Statement of Purpose
I want to mention a book in my SOP/PS and would like to provide a link so that the reader can easily get more details about the book instead of googling it. What would be the ideal website for this purpose: Amazon, google books, publisher's page, author's page etc. or is it best not to include a link at all in case the SOP's are usually read on paper?

FWIW, I probably wouldn't click through in the context of serving on an admissions committee.  I'd expect your application package to stand alone.

Seconding @ScottSeidman: I'd not be willing to do any clicking... your application should stand by itself. Indeed, in some cases, admissions or hiring committees are forbidden to look on-line!

If you need to include a link (see answers below on why you shouldn't), publishers page or authors page should be fine. I would however prefer an ISBN or DOI (if the book has one), or a link to the book entry in a national library catalogue. Don't link to Amazon or Google.

I'd suggest no link at all for several reasons. Most important is that you don't want the reader to go off somewhere else while reading your SoP. You want them to focus on what you write.
Also, as you note, you don't know how the SoP will be read (paper, electronic...). And, you probably have a word limit and might find a better use for the few words it would take for the link.
You should consider that such statements are likely to be viewed, at least in part, as examples of your writing.
A commercial site (Amazon,...) would probably be incorrect.
I would only consider it if the work were obscure. It is likely however, that if it is important to what you say, then others in the field can probably find it easily enough.

From my experience, only mention it in the PS if that book is truly important for your development (Do you have a good reason to justify that to yourself?). If the book is popular, it is probably unnecessary to provide extra information on the details of the book. If it is obscure, as Buffy answered, it is not a terrible idea to mention the details in the essay. However,  you have to take into account that you only have limited space for the PS. You have more to say than what you have learnt from a book. The committee has limited time for each applicant too and probably will not look at it.
It is better if you can provide evidence that you truly learnt something from the book, and produced something as the direct result of reading the book. In fact, that was what I did. The course I wanted to take was not available, so I instead bought an advanced book for that course, self-studied, built a small project based on what I learnt and rewrote code for all algorithms in the book in another programming language. I mentioned it in "Miscellaneous" section of my CV instead.
Also, it is good to have some other supplement documents.


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Being asked if I would like to be considered for a non-funded admission offer for PhD math
I had applied to Florida State University, among other schools for a PhD math for fall 2023 and the application is still showing "under review". Recently I finished a 5-week summer research program and I updated their grad admissions office about the work I did there. I received the following response:
"Thank you for your application to FSU Math. I have added this material to your application. We have no funding remaining at this time, do you want to be considered for a non-funded offer of admission?"
I have no idea whether an unfunded PhD is even possible. I have the following questions regarding this and I would like to respond as soon as possible.

Is it a good idea to accept an unfunded PhD offer in Math? (Most answers here advise against it). I do not have much savings, so I'd be relying on part time jobs or a student loan.

Is it still possible that they might receive more funding in the near future?

Would it be unethical to accept this possible unfunded offer and look for a funded offer elsewhere again next fall?

Does Florida allow student visa holders to find employment outside of the university and does it restrict the number of hours of employment?

Even though my interests have shifted slightly after my summer program, I still might end up applying here again for the next admission cycle, so I do not wish to leave a bad impression by agreeing now and declining an offer later.

Math departments are going to run lower on funding in general. I wouldn't expect to get anything at a later date.

I don't know what the position is in the US, but in many places you would not get a student visa if you can't demonstrate that you can cover your living costs.

In any case, if you can get an unfunded offer now then you can probably get an unfunded offer next year too. So there is little to lose, and a lot to gain, by waiting and re-applying to places in the next round.

"I have no idea whether an unfunded PhD is even possible."  Yes.  Rich Americans and foreigners supported by their own governments sometimes use this option.

Just to clarify -- it sounds like the admissions officer is not offering you anything yet.  They are asking if you would like to be considered for a non-funded position.  You can say yes now, and then decide whether or not to accept the offer later, if it comes. The alternative is basically to withdraw your application, since there are no funded positions left.

My brother had an unfunded stint in grad school (history) and it didn't go particularly well.

Probably a bad idea.  Doing a PhD can get difficult at times, imagine if you are not even being funded and getting the funds from elsewhere.  The only person I know who does it has a parent who is quite high up in the government of the country where he is from and he has not produced any research during the PhD (don't know if that is typical of unfunded PhD candidates).  I would most definitely look for another program, they can't expect you to do a PhD without funding.

Having worked with a sketchy PI, I simply read this as "I am being scammed, should I let them scam me?".

It's a bad idea on principle, let alone financially. Taking loans just compounds the bad idea.
Departments work with annual budgets, so the only possibility for short-term funding would be another student quitting. If you prove to be a really good student, the department might then give you the funding they had budgeted for a prospective student the following year. But don't count on it. They might as well think that if you put up with it for one year, you'll probably put up with it for another year.
It's both ethical and a good idea to look for other programs, if you were to accept the non-funded position.
Issues of student visas and work are ruled by federal law, not state law. You can only legally work within the university. Off-the-books jobs run aplenty in Florida, but these require a strong back. After doing one of these jobs for a week, you'll never utter the phrase "hard work" referring to academic employment.

I suspect that you can do better elsewhere and should explore that.   If they will cover your tuition and fees, along with providing healthcare it might not be a terrible option, providing you can cover your own living expenses.
But, in math, an unfunded doctorate is pretty rare, I'd guess, since universities need a lot of TAs to manage the undergraduate program.
Almost all of the alternatives (jobs, loans, etc) are very unattractive. They will negatively impact you now and/or in the future. Even waiting a year seems preferable to any of those options; especially if you are on a visa. Working "off the books" is especially risky as you could be sent home at any moment.
First option: look elsewhere. Second option (perhaps): wait.
It is a bit risky, by my personal temptation would be to tell them no, you need the funding. But it is your risk, not mine.

As an international student who is a prospective math Ph.D., OP will not be able to secure loans. U.S. providers only offer loans to international students at highly professional schools (law, med, business school, maybe some others); and providers in the home country will not fund a student abroad, at least not in the Western European countries I'm familiar with (the U.S. student loan system is largely unknown there).

Offer of admission to mathematics PhD program but without funding, for international student, is practically equivalent to rejection, unless you have so much money that you can fund their graduate program yourself.
Math PhD is highly stressful. You need to pass those qualifying exams within 2 years, find an advisor, find a problem (your advisor might turn out an idiot and you are then on your own), solve it (you are on your own), and publish 1-2 papers (unless you do algebraic geometry or similar stuff where publication before graduation is 'not the norm'.
Plus, tuition fees for unfunded foreigners are astronomical figures in USA, and even take home salary of full time math postdocs are barely enough to pay the tuition fees and just survive. In particular, legal part time jobs will take you nowhere close financially, but will add to the stress.
All these go against 'unfunded admission'. There is a hypothetical positive. Most of the times, faculty members who do good research (even in pure math) have lots of unused grant money that they sometimes agree to spend on a student if they think it is a good idea to invest on the particular student. For this, you need to do sufficiently well in your first year of studies (at least) and have them take notice of you (by having/adding some spark in your profile).
As stated, this is not an obvious take away. There are lots of ifs. You should have sufficient fund to survive one year on your own, and do very well in studies, and the dept. had at least one good professor (with lots of grant money) who is a good human being too. However, note that you don't know what is the actual evaluation of your application by the admission committee there which prompted them to not offer funding (assuming admission is offered). And if they put some negative evaluation on your file but still offer (unfunded) admission --- and trust me, this happens and student will never rationally find out, that will ensure that you won't get funding from professor's grant (except in very very rare case).
I would suggest you to look for options in EU universities. There, the profs mostly hire students directly to work on some specific project of theirs, and as a result, admission decisions are less bureaucratic.
Good luck!


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Interpreting the statement "We received an extremely strong pool of applications this year." in US grad school decision letters
I've read statements with meaning similar to this: "We received an extremely strong pool of applications this year, therefore..." in several of my decision letters from US grad schools in math this year. Is this a generic statement that is used while declining admission to soften the blow or is there something specific about this year that makes this statement true for many of the US grad schools? If there is, then what is the reason for that(covid?) and is there a reason to believe that admissions will get more or less competitive for the next academic year?

The number of people applying to graduate schools is a function of a variety of factors, not least of which is the job market prospects of seniors in college. Given Covid was unexpected, the impacts of Covid on all kinds of things are fairly unpredictable.

The quantity and quality of applicants may vary from year to year but I expect "received an extremely strong pool of applicants this year" to be true every year for any mildly competitive graduate program.

It is a generic statement used when declining admission to soften the blow.
That said, admissions tends to be fairly stochastic, so yes, admissions next year will be both more and less competitive. You can't know which will apply to each particular program, so the best way to optimize your odds of acceptance if you didn't make it in this application cycle are to 1) Apply broadly to programs that have a range of acceptance thresholds, and 2) Do whatever you can in the coming months to improve your application. Research opportunities and training relevant to your field, but also improving the content of your application itself by having people you trust who are familiar with graduate admissions (professors, ideally) review your application and suggest ways that you might present yourself optimally.

@ZSMJ Better to ask people connected to you like a professor at your current/previous institution: it's not the job of this other person to help you with your application.

Unfortunately this is most probably a generic statement, which does not make it less true. Funding at almost all grad schools is usually short and not all candidates who would deserve funding very well receive it. I would doubt that covid positively influenced the quality of applicants.
Assuming you received a negative response, I would strongly advise to take the reviewers' comments seriously and then try again next year. Sometimes things work out even with only minimally edited applications.

And, given that most (good) graduate programs get many more applicants than places, the results are down to small signal statistics in any given year. It would not be unusual to have years where they could not take every "can't miss" candidate that would have been accepted in previous years.

This is a risk-management response used by all major corporate institutions
To augment the other answers here, let me give the realist (cynic?) view:
Because of the existence of various employment laws and anti-discrimination laws, modern HR departments are trained/conditioned to avoid giving applicants any substantive feedback on the strengths, weaknesses or quality of their application.  They know that any information they give can be used against them in complaints and litigation, so they avoid giving any response of substance.  This is essentially a risk-management method, which is frustrating for unsuccessful applicants but protective for the institution.
"We received an extremely strong pool of applications this year..." is a stock-response that has developed over the last several decades in virtually all major corporate firms, and modern corporatised universities are no different.  This response allows the institution to give a reason for non-success without making any substantive statement in relation to the quality of your application or the relative merits of particular parts of different applications.  The advantage from the institution's point of view (and disadvantage from the applicant's point of view) is that this gives you no information and your non-success remains a mystery.  In particular, it allows the institution to retain complete latitude in its explanation for your non-success in the event of a subsequent complaint or legal case.
I have personally attempted to break through this wall on one occasion where I applied for an academic position and was unsuccessful.  I usually wouldn't bother because I know the risk-management method at issue here, but in this particular case it was a position I was particularly well-aligned to and I really wanted to know what aspects of my application were letting me down that I could improve for the future.  I went so far as to arrange a meeting with the contact person to get feedback on my application and it was like talking to a robot --- no matter how much I pressed for specifics or advice for future improvements, back came the stock non-answers that HR staff and managers are conditioned to give.  Welcome to the corporatised future.


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Asking US grad schools for feedback on application after rejection
I've applied to several US grad schools for PhD math and one of my rejection letters stated that I can contact them regarding their decision. I would benefit from knowing whether their reason of rejection was something I can change (SOP, research experience, test scores etc.) in which case it might be worth applying again after improving those aspects of the application, as opposed to factors that I cannot improve on (past GPA, gap years, quality of past schools etc.).
Would it be okay for me to ask their feedback on this? One university has clearly stated that they do not provide feedback as part of their policy. Others haven't mentioned anything about this.

I would definitely recommend asking. The worst they can do is ignore your email, or decline to give a reason. And I at least would deem a desire for self-improvement a positive trait in any prospective applicant, whether successful or not. An important thing to emphasize is that you accept their decision, and merely seek feedback to identify areas where you can improve your profile for future applications. I have done so for most of my unsuccessful applications, and found the feedback generally very useful for my career development.
That being said, mind that you should take any feedback you receive with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, many hiring officers might give you superficial reasons for rejection, as there might have been hidden factors influencing the decision that they will not tell you to avoid potential legal action on your part. These might include subjective decisions ("I just don't think this profile/background is very interesting"), token hiring calls ("We already know we want to hire person X without looking at other applicants."), or hidden equity objectives (as regrettably evidenced in the Harvard admissions scandal).

I think you should avoid asking because some of these schools are potential future employers for post-doc positions, professorships, and other posts, and you don't want to come off as needy to them. Though it's probably unlikely that they'll remember you, I'd avoid it.
Moreover, some schools receive so many applications that I doubt that you'd receive constructive feedback from say a faculty member if you decide to ask. You would rather get feedback from some administrator.


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Asking other US universities about the status of my PhD application after the April 15 deadline has passed
I have received an email from a US university asking if I am still available to accept an admission offer to their PhD math program. They mentioned that I was in the "top group" on their waitlist and they might have a spot open up in the next few days.
My understanding is that things move rather quicky after the April 15 deadline and hence I would not be given a lot of time to make a decision. My question is that would it be appropriate for me to contact the remaining 6 schools from which I have not heard yet to know the status of my application, and my position on their waitlist, if any, before receiving an offer from this school? I feel like I might not have enough time to wait for their responses after an offer is made. Do I need to include any details about the offer I'm expecting in my email to these universities? Similarly, is it okay for me to contact their current grad students pre-emptively to gauge their level of satisfaction with their program to help me decide? Roughly how much time is an applicant allowed to make a decision for offers made after the April 15 deadline?

It is entirely appropriate to contact these remaining schools.

Hello Professor [Grad Coordinator],
I am looking to make a final decision on graduate programs for the coming fall. Could you let me know the status of my application with your program?
Sincerely ZSMJ

Do bear in mind that if they have not let you know by now, you are likely soft rejected or waitlisted. We rarely gave waitlisted students more than a week to make a final decision once they were elevated to a full offer.
As to contacting current students, I am not sure what would stop you. There is nothing wrong with reaching out to current students to ask about their experiences. We actually tried to put potential students in contact with current students on purpose when I was doing graduate admissions.

Frankly, I'm not sure what there is to decide. It is now past April 15 and it sounds like all your schools have either rejected you or ghosted you except this one. While it's not impossible that some of the schools you haven't yet heard from could end up accepting you, the odds are against you at this point. So it sounds to me like you either accept this offer (it it comes) or you don't attend grad school at all (at least for now). And if you choose the latter option, then I'm not sure why you applied to this school in the first place.

My question is that would it be appropriate for me to contact the remaining 6 schools from which I have not heard yet....Do I need to include any details about the offer I'm expecting in my email to these universities?

If you haven't heard anything by now, it's almost certainly not good news. But sure, nothing to lose at this point, reach out if you like. There is no need to provide details; you can if you like, but keep your mail concise (1-2 sentences).

Similarly, is it okay for me to contact their current grad students preemptively to gauge their level of satisfaction with their program to help me decide?

Sure, nothing wrong with this.

I am someone who is professionally informed on this topic. I would send them emails and/or call every day until they give a status or accept you. Ridiculous to make you wait. Just keep contacting them over and over, that's what they get paid for sitting at their desk all day.


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Importance of an applicant's area of interest in the grad school admission process
Do math grad schools in the US create separate merit lists for each of their research groups depending on which professors are willing and capable of taking PhD students in the coming years or do they ignore the applicant's area of interest and just pick the top ones from a single list, even if certain popular research areas might be overrepresented? In the former case, I suppose applicants with less popular research interests might get an edge due to lowered competition.

Every admissions committee in the US is different and the priorities of the individuals are also different. But I'd guess that it is fairly rare that a specific area of interest has any meaningful priority.
The exception might be if a candidate expressed an uncompromising interest in an area that no one on the faculty was prepared to advise. But that would be rare at any R1 institution. Candidates are expected to be a bit flexible in their area; a bit. Also, if you are adamant that you will only work with professor X and they aren't open to taking students or likely to in a couple of years, then you have a disadvantage, though I'm not going to guess how severe.
Math isn't like lab sciences. The advisor-student relationship is usually 1-1. A student can have an advisor who is a member of a field-focused research seminar but have no contact at all with other members of that group. Also, Since most new doctoral students have only a bachelors degree, selection of a research advisor can come fairly late, after advanced coursework and passing of the comprehensive exams. (Advisors might have several students, of course.)
So, no, there are (very) unlikely to be separate merit lists. Admissions is based on a general prediction of the likelihood of success in the degree and thereafter, with other things playing a minor part. There is also little guarantee that any particular (small) sub-field of math is represented on a given admissions committee.
OTOH, if a department is known for the excellence of its research in a particular area, you do yourself no harm if that is your expressed interest.
You are mistaken that less popular areas (underrepresented in a department) could be an advantage. You need to find an interested advisor with sufficient background to advise you. People are unlikely to take on a student (other than one that is already recognized as beyond brilliant) if they have no background or interest in their topic.
Most R1 universities have a large enough and diverse enough faculty that most general areas are covered. If you are a bit flexible, you can probably find a good advisor. But it is other things that govern admissions.

So how do math departments ensure that the admitted students will be able to find suitable advisors? Is the assumption just that students' interests are fungible enough that they will be able to make something work?

@cag51 nothing is ensured, since grad students in math in the US are often not admitted to work with a specific person from the start (there are exceptions, but you are not asking about that).  A grad student who accepts an offer needs to realize that their work will be in an area of interest of some faculty, even if the student doesn't have a specific area of interest yet (except for something broad, like "geometry"). Even if a student accepting an offer wants to work with a specific person, that person might leave over the next summer (it's not frequent, but I know such cases).

Sure, but if there are only 2 geometry professors and one of them has too many students already, then it might be a bad idea to admit 10 students who want to do geometry. I know there is no one-to-one matching, but I would have expected some attempt to roughly align the incoming class with the estimated hiring needs over the next few years. But I am no mathematician, I am probably missing something.

@cag51 there is some (small amount of) pressure on faculty to accommodate students, but it is not productive for anyone if a student's research is too distant from their advisor. But, in the US, I'd guess that few students start out with a problem to be solved (lack of sufficient background) and "mold" themselves to what is done in that department. In an R1, though, the department is usually large and diverse enough to cover almost all needs. It isn't a problem here, unlike, perhaps, Germany.


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Recommendation for getting into a different field in Computer Science as first year CS master
I am currently co-supervised by 2 profs and my Master's thesis would be on the intersection of both their work: along the lines of compiler, programming languages and machine learning.
However, I'm more interested in a related by slightly different area that none of them are currently focusing on (causality in ML). I have found another prof in this area and I am interested in applying for research intern. However, I only have 2 projects from undergrad that are related, but no publication/serious long research experience in that field.
I'm looking for recommendations on things I can do to demonstrate to this prof that "I have some knowledge in this field and I am willing to put in the effort" I hope there's a solution other than "just write a paper myself and go through the months of review".
A bit more context: This prof is young and have very little student, they are also in the same city as me, although a different university. Not sure if approach someone like this would be easier compared to more established profs.

Depends on the people. Honestly, when I started my PhD I had absolutely no background on the topic I did, other than "general engineering and programming skills".


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do references count towards page limit of journal paper
I am writing a paper and the journal recommends it be 8 pages and 6000 words. I have almost 1 page of references making it difficult to cut the paper down further. Therefore do the references contribute to the page count ?

That completely depends on the journal. You'll want to read their guidelines.

It depends entirely on the journal, as well as the purpose of the length restrictions.  Some journals do not count the references toward the length total.  However, many others do count the references, especially when the printed version of the journal is still deemed important, since in that case the issue may be related to the physical length of the issue.


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choosing workshops/conferences to attend and publish research
I have been able to attend a few different conferences and workshops during my limited time being a masters and PhD student. Some to present my research and some just to watch presentations.
I have have found my experiences throughout the various conferences/workshops vary quite a bit. I am not referring to the organization of the conference in particular (lunch, venue, extra events) but rather the experience itself. For example, the audience varies greatly in size and age with some having large and mixed audiences and some having smaller and older audiences. Some conferences seem to cover a wide range of topics and some cover more specific subject matters. Also, the quality of talks seems to vary greatly.
Having been to a few of these now it has made me reconsider the benefits/usefulness of attending these events. Originally I had thought it was beneficial to attend as many conferences as possible to learn from presentations and network with other researchers. But after having attended a few conferences which have had limited talks which relate to my research, I've found I often end up being jetlagged in another country not being able to do research and just kind of wasting time.
Because of this, I have been considering whether it is better to just try and choose one or two conferences per year which have a younger audience and seem to be moving in the right direction and focus on trying to publish at those yearly. By doing this I can see getting more benefit from attending the conference and also have an academic community to grow with over time.
What are your experiences with getting the most out of conferences, do you attend as many as you can or limit it to specific ones which relate to your research? How do you decide which conferences are worth your time and aren't just looking for registration fees? My particular area is computer science/engineering.

“Computer science/engineering” is extremely broad, and conference culture varies significantly among different subfields. Can you be more specific?

What one gets from attending conferences depends a lot on some personal factors, especially for junior researchers: some people socialize easily and can build fruitful professional relationships, some people are well organized and able to continue their regular work on their laptop while attending talks, some people are interested in almost every talk whether it's close to their research area or not, etc.
Personally I'm not very good at any of these things :) This is why I don't try to maximize the conferences I attend. I try to attend a couple every year, most of the time when I present something. So I choose conferences primarily as a venue for the topic/level of my paper.
To me conferences are a good way to get a general overview of what the field has been up to, finding what are the interesting new directions and the odd clever approach. Poster session are usually a good way to discuss things in more detail and ask about things which are a bit far from my own research area. I often find many interesting things to study later at conferences... and usually I don't have enough time to actually study them later ;) But overall it's really useful in order to see where my work stands in the context of the community.


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positioning yourself for research positions after graduating from a PhD in a different country
I asked this on  Reddit also but didn't get any responses so I am trying here.
I am a first year PhD student thinking about how I can start to better position myself to get a research position after completing my PhD. I am doing this because after graduation I will be moving back to my home country (Australia) which is different to where I am currently doing my PhD, and want to make the transition as smooth as possible.
Because of this, I feel I should consider how I can start preparing myself so that when I graduate I can more easily move into a research position. My first thoughts were to find professors in my area (cyber security) and email them about doing some type of collaboration or joint research, this way I can start networking and get used to the different expectations there may be between labs.
I have emailed a few professors but they haven't replied, I will follow up again to see if they just missed the email but can anyone recommend any other methods/ideas that I can use to start preparing or setting myself up to be able to obtain a research position after graduating when it in a different country to where your obtaining your PhD?

When you get close to finishing ask about post-docs. Be sure to emphasize you are Australian so no visa etc. is needed. Talk to folks at conferences over the next few years. First year seems quite early ...

The most important thing you can do in your first year is to master the material and do well in your courses.
Present your research at conferences in Australia (assuming your program has some funding available for this). This is a more effective way to meet people in your field than sending emails to busy faculty who know nothing about you or your abilities as a researcher.
I don't know how long your PhD program is, but you have time, and presenting repeatedly at Australian conferences would be an excellent way to develop professional connections. You will encounter the same people multiple times at these events over the years. I have even developed lifelong professional friendships with colleagues I first met on the conference circuit.


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Can I include paper submitted to ICLR on my CV as a first year master student?
I just started my Master this fall. I am preparing CV for summer internship, preferably to research position in companies like Deepmind (I've know undergrad who got in Deepmind so I want to give it a shot and try my luck).
I want to include the paper title and a short summary in my CV to show the recruiters my research area and I wish to have the opportunity to talk about them in case the recruiters are interested in the topic of the article.
The paper was recently submitted to ICLR for double-blind review. I looked up on this forum and people saying it can be shared in private. My goal is not to have the recruiter read it verbatim so it should be good? Like if they ask me questions and I answer that, does that violate the rule?
Thanks!!

What does ICLR stand for?

@WolfgangBangerth https://iclr.cc

Is the paper on arXiv?

Also related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/105437/68109


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Summary of recent results presentation slide: proper citation
In some conference presentations a slide with a summary of recent progress in the field is included. One way to do it is to present a graph, where the recent results are compared in terms of some parameter. I was wondering what are the good ways to properly reference all the publications. Needless to say, a full citation of every result (let's say there are 20 results from several different groups compared) would definitely take up too much space in the slide. So, how much information is enough for the publication to be properly referenced (i.e. name of the first author + publication venue + date)?

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.

First author plus year.
However, if you present 20 results from 20 groups, you are not doing an introduction, you are starting a review paper.
On the other hand, if you are presenting 20 results, but they are actually only 4 parameters from 5 groups ... you are still doing a review!
Focus on the 2-3 most recent results relevant to your work. Show that you are either on par with the best ones, or that you have something very different with respect to the most recent (and you have good reasons for that).