text:
Am I allowed to give a gift to a fellow student for helping me in a very direct way?
Due to the COVID situation our lab course only allows one of two students in a partnership to run an experiment during a session while the other observes via Zoom. I can't make it to the next session so I asked my lab partner to go. It turns out that my lab partner is dropping the course and going to run the experiment anyway presumably just to help me out.
I just met the guy and that's such a kind gesture that I want to show him my gratitude by mailing him a gift card or something. My concern, however, is that this might be dangerously close to paying someone to do my schoolwork. Is it potentially against university policy to show my gratitude with a gift?
Edit: We're in the United States.

Does your university policy say anything about this?

A low-value gift card doesn't adequately compensate the work, so there's no perception of paying someone to do [your] schoolwork. (I can't comment on whether it is against your university's policies, that's off-topic here anyhow.)


text:
For a PhD pursuing a career in academia is a Linkedin helpful?
I have seen the other questions on linkedin on the Academia stack exchange page but had a slightly different one.
For a PhD student who is looking to becomes a professor post grad school, is a linkedin helpful?
From what I see, the interview process for academia is the following:

The student gives a job talk at the universities they are interviewing for.
They interview 1-1 with the professors in the department, especially those in the same research field
Their publication record, existing fundings, and CV are reviewed.
Lastly, their recommendations from their own advisor and collaborators are weighed in.

Although point #4 might not be explicitly done, at the end of the day that seems like one of the primary implicit ways a student gets their foot in the door - the student's PhD advisor connects the student to another professor in another university who will vouch/champion them in the interview process.
With all this being said, I see that the academic review board goes directly to the students CV, publication record, and their academic website/page to get a sense of who they are as a academic professional and whether they are involved in the proper outreach activities and support diversity, etc.
In this whole pipeline, I can't imagine linkedin being helpful anywhere along the way. So is it helpful? Or is it only helpful for PhD students seeking opportunities in the private sector? Does having a linkedin affect how I am perceived in Academia?

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/71807/what-is-the-academic-value-of-posts-on-linkedin

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38490/how-are-scholars-supposed-to-use-linkedin

In my experience (academia and industry), there is very little benefit to LinkedIn in the academic sphere. It just fails to have critical mass in academia, and therefore gets used very little. I'm sure it depends on discipline, but a combination of own/departmental webpage, preprint servers and publication aggregators, and (in some disciplines) Twitter is where it's at. That being said, a low-key LinkedIn profile doesn't hurt, especially if you want to start staying in contact with friends and (former) colleagues who leave academia and for whom LinkedIn becomes a lazy directory of who has gone where and how to stay in touch. I can't imagine it would have a negative effect on perception.
I do however recommend to academics (including advanced Ph.D. candidates) to set up their own, personal (i.e. professionally focused but personally owned, controlled, and managed) webpages, especially if they are in techy- or in any way outreach-to-the-public relevant fields. These days, it is cheap and easy to get a domain name of your own, to set up a WordPress (or similar) site somewhere. Then you get to post your research in the format you want, show a bit of creativity, etc. And by doing it early and well, your site will rank highly in search. It's much more professional looking, to current- and would-be peers as well as to journalists and the public (if relevant) if you have a well-organized and up-to-date website, than if a couple of years down the road a Google Search for you yields 3-4 abandoned pages at institutions you did a post-doc at, with expired links to old papers and no mention of the most exciting topic you are focusing on at the present time. In this day and age you will eventually want to control how you market yourself, and it's easiest to do if you start doing it gently early rather than in a big rush when you discover you ought to have been doing it already.

It is helpful when you want to jump into industry at some point.
It is helpful as a way to network with your peers in a "professional" context
It is potentially helpful for other people reading you work to get a sense of your credentials.
It is completely useless for building a network of research contacts.

The tricky part is that you are almost certainly going to be spotted by (aggressive) recruiters or other people who wants you to work with them down the road, and you have to keep telling them "Uh, I am 1 year into my PhD so I can't work for you right now", or "Uh, I can't really do an internship because I'm 4th year into my 5 year PhD program". Or "Sorry I can't relocate with Shenzhen at the moment."

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text:
Is a paper with no citations likely to contribute to citation metrics in a way which reduces my job prospects?
Last year I did some work to help out my friend and his supervisor on a project that they were working on. I wasn't very involved with the project, but the work that I contributed was important for them to be able to find the main results that they were interested in. I asked at the time if they would they be happy to include me as an author on the paper based on this contribution, and they said they would be happy to do that.
I think it's quite likely that the paper might not get very many citations. The most closely related paper to the one they will publish soon was written by my friend's supervisor, and it has only one citation. It was published in 2015, and I think it's in an area that doesn't have so much research interest in general.
I've been wondering what different people think about whether being an author on this work would look better or worse for me, with respect to future positions in academia. I'm hoping to look for a postdoctoral position in the near future, in a different but related field.
I feel like it might look better: I would have more publications and it's showing more of my skills. I could put it on my CV.
Or it might look worse: I know there are different metrics which take into consideration how many citations papers have, and having a paper with no citations might reduce my score on them.
I'm currently at the end of my PhD and I have 6 publications, one has 4 citations and the rest have between 10 and 25. I think at this point it would be reasonable to ask them to include me only as an acknowledgement on the paper, if I decided that was the best option for me.
Any opinions/perspectives on this appreciated.
I appreciate that it's my choice whether I put the paper on my CV or not, if I choose to stay as an author.
Thanks

Which field are you in?

All papers start with zero citations.

What do you think others may think of this publication, or perhaps of its omission from your CV?

@user2768 I think the question is more what happens when the paper stays at zero citations.

Is it common in your field to list # citations on your CV?

@AzorAhai--hehim Even if not, people might check on google scholar, ISI, etc.

@user151413 True, but it would seem unlikely to me that people sorting through applications that a newly minted PhD would be applying for would go to the trouble of checking citations for individual papers

@AzorAhai--hehim I don't see where the OP refers to postdoc applications right after their PhD.  Maybe they are concerned about applying for a tenured position in 10 years?  And whether there is reason for concern is the point of the question - that we agree that there is no reason for that does not change the question.

@user151413 Okay, and it seems even less likely a low citation paper would be noticed by the time you get to TT applications compared to the body of the work. I am not criticizing the question, it's a totally fine question. If the answer to my clarifying question was "no" I'd say something along the lines of "It's unlikely to be noticed." If it were "yes" I wouldn't answer because my field doesn't do that.

@AzorAhai--hehim Agreed, that's why I asked about the field.

@Joe In light of comments, perhaps you edit to clarify

@user2768: e.g. Einstein paper.

I have seen profiles of bigshots scientists with numerous publications cited 0 times.

One of the most amusing referee reports I've seen read "The question considered in the paper has a long story and there were many partial results. The main theorem in the paper resolves the conjecture in full and closes the subject, so it will probably have no citations" (quoting from memory, so the original wording might be different but the meaning has been preserved). In other words, decide based on the quality of the work, not on the number of references. If you feel proud of it, most likely other people will like it too even if it doesn't contribute much to your h-index yet.

Hi everyone and thanks for your comments. I've made some edits to take some of them into consideration. I think I asked a slightly different question to the one I meant to ask, so I've changed the title of the question also.

No, this is not a problem. Everyone has papers on their CV which have few citations, including older papers. If this were true for all your papers, in particular even all of those which are several years old, this could be an issue - but this does not seem to be a problem at all in your case.  (Note that the distribution of citations vs. papers is somewhat similar for everyone, reflected e.g. in the fact that there is a clear relation between the number of publications and the h-index.)
Moreover, if you really feel later on that a given paper does not represent you well, you can always omit it from your publication record - you are not obliged to list everything you ever published there, in particular if you feel it is not relevant.
So I would go with being a coauthor of the paper, if the others offer coauthorship to you, and you feel it is deserved.

Edit: To follow up on your updated title, a paper with a low number of citations will not have a negative effect on citation metrics: Typical metrics are either the total number of papers, the total number of citations, or (most importantly) the h-index, none of which gets worse if you add little-cited papers.  The only indicator which would be affected is the number of citations per paper, but this is rarely used - and even then, a single little-cited paper will not have a big effect.

Mostly I agree, but I believe in at least some contexts (which may include some academic job applications) it is expected that your CV includes every paper you've ever published. In that situation, if you omit a paper and it's found out (which is unlikely, but still), it might raise questions about what else you might be trying to hide.

@DavidZ I'm not sure that's the expectation.  (For instance, it would be quite natural to omit papers which might be on a different field, done e.g. during undergrad work.)  But I agree, omitting papers might people wonder why that happened.  What I would find more disturbing, however, is someone listed "selected papers" and then listing all but one, this would look to me like trying to give the impression there are many more papers while there is only one.

Thanks, this answer was really helpful fo rme

I probably don't have the best perspective, having been out of academia for a few years, but as far as I know, anyone who cares about citation metrics will be using a standard widely-inclusive data source (e.g. Google Scholar) to get their data. So as far as the metrics are concerned, it doesn't matter whether you put any given paper on your CV or not.
More generally, I think it's quite rare that it would actually hurt to put a paper on your CV. The only case I can think of where you would actively want to not be associated with a paper is if the paper was retracted for some reason having to do with academic fraud, or something similarly serious, and in that case leaving the paper off your CV isn't going to keep people from finding out about it. Having no or few citations certainly isn't a reason to not want to be associated with a paper. It's quite a normal situation, especially as an early-career researcher.

Having a coauthor with a very bad reputation (scientific fraud, supporting outlandish scientific theories or extreme political views, etc) could also reflect poorly on you even if the paper itself is clean. It is unfair especially if the coauthor acquires such a reputation later on, but you can become "the guy who published with X".

Ah yeah, that's true. But I think that'd probably be another case where people will make the connection on their own regardless of whether you put it on your CV.

You can remove publications for your google scholar profile.

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text:
Getting a second opinion
(I'm a math PhD student)
I'm writing a paper and part of my work relies on an old result of my advisor.
Recently, I started to become concerned that the old result does not have a proof (only a sketch) and I have a hunch that the proof is considerably harder (or possibly just much trickier) than the sketch makes it look.  (It's possible I'm wrong; it concerns an area that I'm more of a novice in.  However, I know enough that I couldn't cite this result without at least reading the sketch.)
Not only that, there are certain questions I have not been able to address as it pertains to my results, and the more I have thought about the missing proof of the old result, the more confident I have become that those questions could be addressed if I knew the missing proof.  Therefore, not only does some of my work rely on this old result, but I may be able to substantially improve it if I figure out the old one.  (To put it differently, in my own brain at least, the old result is an important open question.)
Further (and, ironically, this was brought to my attention by my advisor), there is a rather big theorem in our research area that relies on the old result.  It's troubling to me that I don't know how to prove the big theorem without it, and it could be an issue for the larger community if, as I suspect is possible, no one knows how to fill out the sketch in the original paper.
It may be that this is simply an open problem that has been overlooked.
I am discussing this with my advisor and I'm concerned that he won't be willing to show me how to fix the sketch or to make time for us to come up with our own proof.  (We discussed it previously, before I had understood its importance, and his explanation followed the sketch in the paper.  It looks possible that my advisor and his coauthor overlooked the difficulty in turning the sketch into a proof.)
What's worse is my advisor is starting to get a bit defensive about it (or that's my impression).  I don't doubt that he will eventually hear my concerns, I'm simply worried that he will want to move on or will admit that he no longer knows how to fix it; and I don't want to sit around waiting until that happens.
Is now a bad time to reach out to a junior person in the field (who I know and trust) asking if they know how to turn the sketch into a proof?  I would not phrase it as "I'm concerned the old result is wrong," but as "What am I missing?  I'm new to this particular problem, is it known how to address this kind of issue?  Have you read this part of the paper before?"  I would ask that this person not discuss it with my advisor before we had come to a conclusion and have the entire conversation via Zoom rather than e-mail.  At the end of the day, I don't want to bother my advisor with technical details from old papers, whereas the person I have in mind is someone I trust to listen to my questions and take the details seriously.
My concern is if my advisor hears about it, he could misunderstand my intentions and think I'm telling others his old result is wrong.  However, this issue is pretty distracting right now and I just want to know I'm not missing something that really is obvious or understood by experts.  If that's the case, then I can stop pressing my advisor about it and move on to other things.
I could wait until this takes its course with my advisor; it's just that he's busy.  In retrospect, I wish that I had asked someone else first (before my advisor) so that I wouldn't be in the awkward position I'm in now.

It’s an interesting situation and you seem to have given the issue a considerable amount of thought. However... it’s really unclear what exactly you’re asking. “Is now a bad time [...]?” - that’s the only sentence in the post that ends with a question mark, is that literally your question? I have no idea how to approach giving you advice given such a vaguely formed question. Also your post is too long, I suggest that you edit to boil it down to the essentials and make it clearer what kind of advice you need.

Going to the younger colleague is fine, but I also wouldn't hesitate to go to your advisor again.  It is, after all, part of his job to train you.  Prepare a detailed explanation of the problem you see with the proof and the spots where you think it is tricky.  If you're conscientious in narrowing down the scope of the issue, you surely won't be wasting his time.  Either he can fill it in (and you're done) or he can't (and then you've made him aware that there's a gap in his old proof, which is doubtless important to him).
I have been in a similar situation.  There was a theorem which my advisor attributed to another, famous and famously sloppy mathematician who only sketched the proof.  Moreover, another student of my advisor several years prior wrote out a detailed proof in his unpublished thesis.  I was working on generalizing the result to a different setting (already as a postdoc) and noticed an unproven assumption in the other student's proof.  In the end the assumption was false, the overall result was correct, but required additional novel ideas and evinced some unanticipated subtleties -- my advisor and I published a paper in a very good journal.  (Then I got distracted onto other projects and never finished the generalization.)

It's absolutely possible that the theorem is wrong. Even with peer-review, invalid theorems get published, especially when a plausible looking sketch is presented. Equally, it is possible that the theorem is true.
Moving forwards, try to expand the proof sketch into a proof. If you get stuck, try to construct counterexamples. If you can't proceed, reach out to the junior person you mention. You could do so casually, e.g., explain that you are trying to construct the proof as an exercise to improve your skills and to better understand the nuances.


text:
How to deal with an absentee Ph.D. advisor and selfish fellow Ph.D. student
I am a Ph.D. student in North America, I am three years into a four-year program. The relevant people in this story are my advisor (A), the other Ph.D. student in my group (B). A is a very well established and respected researcher in our field. B is a few years younger than I, and is only about 1.5 years into their Ph.D., but we work together a lot and have a good friendship. My relationship with A has been good, and I have heard that A speaks highly of me to others.
About Me
During the first two years of my Ph.D. I was involved in an incredibly toxic relationship that significantly impacted my research progress. That relationship has since ended which has led to a very significant improvement in my productivity. A is aware of this and we have discussed it and they sympathized with my situation. Partly due to that, I have not yet published anything (also my first project went nowhere), but I have been working on a new project for a year which is now ready to publish. I am also working on two other projects with B and have a number of other things in mind which I have been either working on or want to work on and publish before graduating.
Absentee Advisor
The major issue that I currently face is that A is extremely busy all the time. This is to be expected for a university professor, but in this case, is quite extreme. In general, A does not dedicate much time to advising or working with our group members, to the point that the majority of their publications each year don't involve anyone from our group (we have a number of Master's students as well). A has acknowledged this lack of involvement and has apologized and indicated they would make a better effort, but so far we have not seen that materialize.* Due to the pandemic and subsequent quarantine, things are even more difficult because we cannot even go to A's office to try to quickly discuss a research problem. This is particularly bad right now because multiple projects are coming to their conclusions and need to be published, which I feel is the most crucial point where we need direct involvement in order to construct well-written papers that will be well-received by the community.
Fellow Ph.D. Student
Now about three weeks ago, I was told that B had a meeting with A during which A expressed that they thought I had "abandoned" the two side projects I have been working on with B, and that B might be asked to take the lead on both of those projects; B was excited about how good it would be for their career and has not mentioned it to me (nor has A), which I feel is incredibly selfish. I was really surprised by this because (a) I am the more advanced and senior student; (b) A should know that I was pushing my current project to completion (a large project which I have completely taken over as my own but which B will also get their name on eventually due to prior contributions) and therefore not focusing on the other two projects, which are both still in an exploratory phase and which we had not had any meetings to discuss recently due to being busy with other things; (c) because I consider B a friend, and I am surprised they would not vouch for me (they are well aware of the work I am doing because we hang out in-person regularly and I tell them about it). I do not mean to speak poorly of B, but I feel that they produce a large quantity of surface-level research while I produce a lower quantity of more deeply thought-out work. Our advisor spends so little time directly involved in our work that they only get a tiny window into what we're doing in which B looks very busy because they produce a large quantity of data which they don't know how to interpret, while I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the interpretations of the data which is a slow process.
Two weeks ago I sent a new complete draft to A for the current project, and they said they were very busy but would get back to me soon, and in the meantime not to continue modifying the draft. I took that opportunity to take the lead on one of the other projects, writing up a partial draft for it, doing novel analysis on the problem, and applying that analysis to an example with an extensive discussion of directions for further work.
One week ago, I sent the draft to A and B, and said we should have a meeting to discuss. A has not replied at all to that email, while in separate discussions B I learned that they had discussed it with A previously without me and A feels something important is missing, but B has avoided telling me what exactly that something is. I am good friends with B, but this rubbed me the wrong way because I feel that I am being boxed out of a project which we are supposed to be equally involved in and they are doing it because they want to get first-authorship on the eventual paper.
Current State of Affairs
Shortly thereafter, I requested a meeting with A to discuss the draft I sent, the notes on the second project I sent, and to discuss my ideas for new projects going forward and how I will finish my Ph.D. I also have been wanting to ask A if they will keep me for a fifth year due to my early struggles, which is something I think they would be open to, though I have not stated that directly. The meeting was scheduled for Tuesday, but then A requested that we postpone until Saturday (today) due to a deadline. I requested that we meet in person and we agreed to meet at a cafe. Friday evening around 7 pm I received an email requesting to reschedule for Monday via Zoom due to "a lunch date I can't reschedule". Honestly, right now I feel personally offended by this, I feel almost insulted by this last-minute cancellation for a meeting which I feel is really important due to a double-booked "lunch date" when we scheduled this meeting nearly a week ago. I don't even have the words to express my frustration and disappointment right now, because this is not only the second rescheduling of this meeting, but it will likely no longer be in-person and I have received almost no input from my advisor for months on my work. I did not want to have a Zoom meeting, which I feel significantly hinders the ability to have a heart-to-heart discussion.
Question
What can I do in this situation? I have tried to maintain a correspondence with A via email to maintain a connection (we are all working from home), but perhaps I have not been regular enough with that communication and they feel that I am not being productive. I have requested again that we can meet in person, but have not heard back from them yet about that. I want to clear the air and clarify all this nonsense that has been happening, I don't like that people are discussing things behind my back about projects I am involved in, but I can't bring up that I was told about the conversation with B. I want to push my current paper to completion and publish it and be able to work on more projects and finish a few more publications before I graduate, but I can't do that without some involvement from my advisor and possibly an extra year (otherwise I will need to transition to thesis writing soon). I would also like to clarify the point about his limited window into the productivity of B and myself and assure him that I am in fact very busy with research and not slacking off. I want to discuss staying another year but I am now worried that A thinks I am not working hard enough or something and is writing me off. I also don't know what to do about B, I kinda feel I should not collaborate with them in the future---I have spent many many hours explaining things to them and yet they are willing to accept getting lead credit on two projects which we are both involved in when they are very well aware of the work I have been doing on the other project that they will also get credit for, rather than vouch for me.
*As a small aside, when I described the situation to a previous advisor they told me I should find a new Ph.D. advisor, which was not really an option and I didn't really want to do that anyway. I do get along well with A, but they are just too busy to be directly involved with their grad students' research. Outside of our meetings, I am not sure that A spends much time thinking about the problems we are working on.

A[dvisor] does not dedicate much time to advising or working with our group members: How much time per week do they dedicate? I was told that B had a meeting with A: By whom?

Meet with your advisor, put forward a proposal for finishing all outstanding works, raise authorship and explain that you feel you should be the lead author. Move-on to discuss future works. Assuming your advisor is positive, suggest timing might be an issue and ask whether an extension is possible. If not, suggest dropping some or all of the discussed future work to fit the available time. Finally, present a schedule for writing up.
Summarise key points, namely,

Finishing all outstanding works,
Future work, and
Thesis,

in the email that requests the meeting.


text:
Applying for PhD as a transferred undergraduate: do I need transcripts from my previous institution?
I am an undergraduate student planning to apply for Ph.D.
The thing is that I spent the first year of my undergraduate at another university. I did transfer some credits but I didn't transfer any major credits. The question is - do I need to include my transcript for the first year in the application? Or could it be based on the institute I am applying to? The GPA of my first year is not bad but getting the transcript is a little bit tricky since the institue is in another country.
I really appreciate your input!

They will probably ask for it.
That being said this is a question for the institution you are applying to. Send an email or call their graduate college to figure out what is necessary in your particular case.

The portal should make it clear if they want it. Do log in and start an application before emailing someone.

As CL40 said, you will probably need to submit all of your transcripts (this is almost certainly the case in the US at least). I think most schools have this information on their admission webpage (check the FAQ as well). If it is written something like "transcripts from all of the programs attended", then it means you need to send them that transcript. It wouldn't hurt to email/call and ask though.
About your grades, I wouldn't worry about it. It's your 1st year grades, which count for very little (if at all), and you're saying it's not terrible, so I don't think that'd hurt your application. (More senior people here on SE can have more reliable comments on this though. I've never been on the other side of the application game.)


text:
I'm thinking about quitting my PhD program and seeking advice
I have completed part of my PhD program and am thinking about quitting- I'm looking for advice from someone who has had a similar experience or who has advice to offer. I took my comprehensive exams and passed. At this point I have a a proposal for my dissertation and am collecting data. However, the past 2 years, and especially this past year, have been emotionally draining for me. My anxiety has been through the roof, I'm irritable and my depression is weighing me down. I left my family and my fiance to move to the program.
My advisor is also making it difficult for me to find the motivation to continue. My advisor does not provide feedback, and offers very little guidance and later suggests major issues that will likely come up and prevent publication. Several students in my cohort have already graduated 1, 2 and even 3 semesters ago while I still have a while to go. I fear that my advisor is trying to drag out my stay in the program so that he has a GA.
On top of the above issues, I have come to find out that I dislike this field. I no longer have interest in working in this field or in academia in general. Given that I feel this way about the field, I don't think it is worth it for me to continue to make myself miserable by staying in the program. However, I don't think my program will let me leave with a Master's degree even though at this point I have fulfilled the necessary requirements. I worry about my family's reactions and about feeling ashamed if I do decide to quit.

What is your career goal? Will finishing this PhD help you get there? Have you told your advisor that you want to finish ASAP and are considering leaving without a degree?

I would advise talking to a professional about your mental health first and foremost (your university likely has a counselling service). It's not good that even thinking about work makes you feel physically sick! There are no miracle/overnight cures, but simply talking through your feelings with an impartial 3rd party can be a huge help.

Ava: please do not vandalize your question. Our policy is that answered questions should remain so that future readers can benefit from the time our community has spent trying to help you. As stated in the policy, you are allowed to carefully edit your post to remove any super-specific or personally-identifiable information, while retaining the gist of the question.

I have a few thoughts. First, since you have completed comps and the dissertation proposal, there should not be any reason that you have to remain in state to finish your degree. At my university, many students finalize their dissertations while living out of state. Perhaps moving back near your fiance and family would alleviate some of the pressure that you are feeling. The downside of moving is that you would have to finance the remainder of your degree. If you do not have a large number of dissertation hours required, this may be feasible. Also, if you tell your chair that you will be moving out of state after the spring semester, he would know that he is going to lose his GA even if you do not graduate.
Dissertations are hard. All of our ideas and work are constantly being judged. It is common to feel loneliness, despair, stress, frustration,and the list goes on... I believe that the current pandemic has heightened all of these emotions making the dissertation burden even greater. I think it is also common to begin to hate the field in which you are completing the dissertation and to question if you will ever be able to use your future degree.
Ultimately whether or not to continue is your decision. Your parents will love you no matter what you decide. Will you be disappointed in yourself if you leave the program? Will you always question how life might have been different if you completed the degree? These are questions that I would ask myself.
Wishing you all the best as you move forward.


text:
How to follow up with a master's advisor who abandoned me?
I was recently awarded my master's degree. This was a very difficult process since my master's thesis advisor completely abandoned me halfway through. She literally did not answer my e-mails . No -one in my institute was specialized in the branch I wanted to write thesis so , I wrote to a professor of another institute in my country and she agreed . I visited her institute for 7 days in January , 2020 and she gave me a research paper to study . After completely understanding the paper in mid February , when I emailed her on how I should proceed she didn't replied .  I e-mailed her 4-5 times in February-March and got no reply.I ended up finishing the work on my own and the committee approved my thesis without her involvement.( but didn't evaluated thesis of any student due to pendamic( thesis were not even asked for submission, the evaluation was done on the basis of presentation done in mid february) More details in my previous post.
My concern is that no one has reviewed my thesis. One other professor gave very generic comments (grammar) and simply said I wrote a nice thesis. I want to apply to PhD positions in Europe, so I think my thesis should be carefully reviewed by an expert before I apply.
Question: How can I get my (former) advisor to review my thesis?   . Should I write in email that a this was not expected  as she had said yes to me and even I visited her institute  and  I was left for thesis without any advisor?
Or there should not be any complaints in e-mail and I should just request her ?
Do writing these things and expressing my displeasure will further diminish chances of her replying to my e-mail . But certainly due to her I went through very much anxiety and had to spend a lot more of time on project by myself ( and whose output is till not known although I tried to give my best ). I am sure she was not suffering through covid-19 and I saw her name as one of the speakers at  various seminars taking place in my country amid pandemic( at different points of time).
She didn't replied. It is a weird thing how professors wield such great power in Academia that students can't do anything.

Will she know that your thesis has been passed? If so, then it may be a waste of time as it holds no benefit for her.

What subject? I think for a PhD interview in Europe it is much more likely people will want to talk with you about your thesis than to read it.

@user151413 It's Pure Mathematics ( Number Theory).

Why did you leave this slide? You should have demanded the university to discipline her or assign you a new advisor. This is outrageous and would have made big waves here at my university (Europe).

@TheoreticalMinimum There are a lot of times when I think of doing so as it's very much carelessness on her  part and due to it i suffered a lot academically and mentally and that too without any reason . But , I live in a third world country where favoratism and corruption is rampant . There would not be hardly anyone who would support me  when I would complain about her as she is at an institute higher in hieraarcy ( althogh not much higher)so I am focussing on studying for my Phd entrances as legal and administrative system in my  country is in terrible shape and against the victim !!

@user795826 This is what I thought. I'm sorry you had to go through this. I wish you luck with your future studies.

@TheoriticalMinimum Thank you very much!!

This is a peculiar situation. Your supervisor did not honor your agreement, but at this point she has nothing to gain from continuing to be involved with your thesis, and being angry about that isn't going to help you in any way. Realistically, do not expect any more input from her, and move on.
Getting someone else to look at your thesis could be useful, but keep in mind that you are asking someone to put in a couple days of work for nothing in return. Try to find someone who could be at least slightly interested in this, and see what you can do to minimize the effort for them. Maybe approach a lecturer whose class you took during your degree, or enroll in a new course if you think that you have burned bridges in that university? Search around if there is some other researcher, even elsewhere in the world, who has published on a similar topic -- in particular, someone early in their career might be more excited to help.
Even then, clean up the writing as much as you can by yourself, maybe send them just the key proofs, and ask targeted questions -- in other words, approach this always keeping in mind that you are asking for a favor -- and you are more likely to get a reply.

I e-mailed her 4-5 times in February-March and got no reply.

If she did not reply to your e-mails or otherwise advise you when she was technically your advisor, why would she reply to them now that you have graduated? I think she has effectively ended your relationship. I do not know whether she had good reason for this or if she is just lazy, but either way, I think you should pursue other paths forward.

Or there should not be any complaints in e-mail...?

If you are asking someone for a favor, you should not complain about them or chastise them, regardless of how legitimate your complaints may be.

She literally did not answer my e-mails...one other professor gave very generic comments (grammar)

I too am very concerned about your grammar and writing skills. For example, your use of the spacebar does not seem to follow any particular logic. In the case of your question above, I tried to help you clarify, but your subsequent changes made everything confusing again!
I don't mention this just out of pedantry; rather, I think there is an important point here. Consider: I initially really wanted to help, but due to these communication challenges, I'm now sort of burnt out and I think I personally would probably avoid responding to new posts from your account. You should consider the possibility that your advisor's silence has a similar explanation.

I know that i make this mistake of putting a space before full stop at the end of the sentence but I can't imagine that any advisor would not reply to my email just for this reason. Also ," tried to help you clarify, but your subsequent changes made everything confusing again!" your edit was missing some crucial points which I must include in the question .

@user795826 I couldn't really understand your post. Minor mistakes aren't the issue, I struggled to read your writing. Perhaps writing skills are an area you could focus on.

Yes, this is exactly the point. I don't see any important information in your subsequent edits -- so, either it's not important, or its so unclear that I didn't understand it properly. Either way, this could be a serious issue when corresponding with less-patient people via email. Good luck!

Not replying to emails after having agreed to supervise a student is cowardice, if one does not want to supervise a student anymore one should inform the student and take official action.

Oh, I agree. But this question asked about how the student should respond; the advisor's response is not something the student has control over.

I think you should ask the university administration to reimburse your fees, you paid for Masters but did not get supervision, if you provide the unanswered emails as evidence this should go a long way.

Do you have some basis for believing this will work? I am no expert in such things, but I'm fairly confident that OP's odds of getting a reimbursement are zero.

Yes I know of cases, of course there needs to be strong evidence of not having received supervision, which clearly seems to be the case here. Moreover, said staff member will probably think twice in future before abandoning a student without even having the courtesy to say so.  For broader discussion see e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/dec/18/refund-if-university-fails-deliver

see here for the UK body which helps students with this: https://www.oiahe.org.uk, and for a very similar case e.g. https://www.oiahe.org.uk/resources-and-publications/case-summaries/supervision-providing-supervisory-team-pi091516/

@HerculePoirot Mate, your Idea is very plausible to me and I want to make sure that no student is harmed like that ? Can you tell how should I proceed to take action against such a shameless prof? I even posted a question here:https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/184545/what-should-i-write-about-the-action-to-be-taken-against-my-masters-thesis-advi

For UK: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/for-students/ofs-and-students/complaints/complaints-about-a-university-or-college/     I assume other countries/universities will have similar things. I would always first try and resolve internally if possible, failing that try this route. Good luck.


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Should one disclose "red flags" when contacting a potential supervisor?
If one has a "red flag" in their history (in terms of non-academic issues), is it best to disclose it to a potential supervisor? This can apply to any type of situation (a conflict with a faculty member, another student, a mental health issue that affected one's behavior etc.) Obviously, one wouldn't want to disclose something minor when the supervisor/university probably wouldn't hear about it anyway; I'm referring to situations that reach administration and that might be mentioned in a "letter of recommendation" (or when there might not be any letters from one's dept. etc.)?

This depends strongly on the kind of "red flag" we are talking about. Your health or past conflicts with other people are your own business, and not that of potential supervisors, so you would tend not to disclose them. But if there is a reasonably high chance that the potential supervisor will find out and that it will affect the evaluation of your application or your performance, you might want to preemptively disclose it.

I would treat this like dating.  You'll need to be honest and disclose red flags before you get engaged/married.  But it doesn't need to come out on the first date. The reason is that so many other things might happen that would make disclosing the red flag totally unnecessary.
For example, you write a professor expressing interest in working with him/her, and he/she writes back "sorry I'm going on sabbatical next year and not taking new students", or "sorry my lab is full right now I don't have room for new students".  In those cases, disclosing a red flag is pointless.  He/she isn't going to work with you anyway, so why bring it up?
Or maybe, he/she writes back "yes I would love to work with you, I have an immediate opening for <extremely boring project>".  In that case, you don't want to work on that boring project, so why bring anything else up?
Now if you've exchanged a few e-mails, or a phone call, and it looks like there is some mutual interest, you are interested in his/her projects, and he/she is interested in you, but before you have formally accepted the position, that's when you should probably say, "before we go any further, I wanted to be honest with you and let you know about <potential red flag>."

I already told the new advisor some of the situation (Just my initial misunderstanding with the professor; not the drama with admin.), and she seemed understanding but didn't explicitly agree (or decline) to advise me. However, the program isn't accepting students until next year, so it was probably too early for her to make a commitment. Once I'm closer to applying, however, I plan on contacting her again. I'm afraid that if I disclose too much, she could come up with an excuse as to why she can't take me on. However, if I don't ...

disclose the full situation (maybe not in detail but letting her know that I ended up in conflict with admin. from trying to retract a grievance) and the admission committee finds out part of what happened (i.e. that I tried to have the chair demoted or that the LOR request came from the Gen. Counsel's Office), then I'm risking being rejected over it.


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How to differentiate "imposter syndrome" from actual lack of suitability for grad. school/academia?
A lot of graduate students/applicants, it seems, suffer from "imposter syndrome." Typically, these are bright, high-achieving students, who nonetheless doubt their ability, and this most likely stems from the competitive and selective nature of grad. school and academia. However, how can one tell if they're suffering from "imposter syndrome" or if they're really not cut out for graduate school/academia?
The difference that I see (between myself and these students) is that their professors believe in them, wrote them letters of recommendation, plus they have good research skills (even if they don't see it in themselves, others do). Despite doing well in my coursework (which doesn't even indicate much given rampant grade inflation), I could tell that most of my professors lacked confidence in me (at least I think). For example, when I initially applied to grad school (unsuccessfully), one of my professors wrote me a letter of recommendation that seemed almost sarcastic in its praise. For example, he described a paper I wrote as being among the "top 10 papers he's ever seen from a student in his 20 years of teaching." The paper, however, was only around 10 pages (that was the requirement), plus I used some dubious sources (i.e. newspaper and online articles etc.) because I was in a rush. (There were no requirements on sources, and I received an A on the paper, but once one gets to upper division classes, they should know to only use scholarly sources.) Thus, this couldn't have been one of the top ten papers he's ever read. (Or he's taught some pretty weak students!) (And he didn't even qualify it with "top 10 undergraduate papers," which also confirms that he was probably being sarcastic.)
This is only one example, but I can tell that others don't believe in me. So I wanted to ask if I could be suffering from imposter syndrome or if I'm one who really isn't cut out for academia? That might be too much of an individualistic question, so I'll instead ask: how can one tell if they're suffering from imposter syndrome or if they really are an "imposter?"

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

We can’t tell from what you write how promising you really are.  But I can say you’re showing many classic signs of impostor syndrome.
Believe the assessments you receive from instructors.
At least in my experience (the US and NW Europe), “sarcasm” is very rare, and considered quite unprofessional.  I would certainly be shocked to see it used in a letter of recommendation, or a formal course report, or anything like that.  It might be used in informal personal feedback, but this would be unusual, and considered by most academics today as inappropriate and unprofessional, or (at best) regrettably old-fashioned.
Grade inflation is a realistic concern to some extent, as is “praise inflation” in letters of recommendation.  But it sounds like you’re taking this concern far over the top — don’t discount grades or praise entirely.  If your instructor praised the paper, it really does mean he was impressed by it.  Sure, you are aware of the flaws in it — but he saw those flaws, and nonetheless remembered it as very impressive overall.  (Incidentally, it isn’t at all unusual for a paper to have some sloppiness, but still be extremely impressive by showing good insights, knowledge, or exposition.)  Which brings me to:
Don’t judge yourself by a double standard compared to your peers.
There’s a saying: “We compare our own behind-the-scenes to everybody else’s highlight reels.”  Everything you write sounds like what that describes: When you get praise or positive feedback, you are looking for reasons to discount it; but you are taking your peers’ positive feedback at face value.  At the same time, you say you see lack of confidence in you from professors, but everything concrete you mention is positive.
These are all massive red flags for impostor syndrome.  It’s always hard to judge our own capabilities, but when in doubt, look at the most concrete feedback you’ve received from people whose judgement you trust, and take it at face value, especially compared to the feedback they give your peers.  If you look for specific reasons to discount it, you’ll always find some, because you know your own life and flaws better than anyone else.  (Just like when an arrogant person looks for reasons to discount criticism, they can always find some good excuse.)  So, fight any tendencies to discount feedback, either positive or negative.  Try to believe your professors’ assessments and feedback, praise and criticism, and take both on board.  Good luck!

Re sarcasm - I once saw "You will be very lucky if you get this person to work for you" in a reference from a previous employer.

@MichaelHarvey That's a nasty one! One really needs to read it twice.

Exactly. In Britain, I think a former employer can get sued for a bad reference. A lot of (probably most) companies will only confirm start & end dates, although an informal phone chat with a seriously considered candidate's former line manager is quite common.

@MichaelHarvey Why is that sarcastic? The previous employer is asserting that the candidate is excellent and the new employer would be privileged to hir them, given the other offers they'll no doubt be receiving.

@CaptainEmacs That depends on their CV... (There are two readings here.)

@user2768 Indeed two readings. In Germany, people never write negative references (this can lead to lawsuits), so they encode problems in superficiously positive language ("sociable" -> "drunk"; "always give their best" -> "which is not good enough"; "always on time" -> "little else positive to report"; "hard-working" -> "yes, but with any results?"). The present formulation is a piece of genius, never saw that before.

@CaptainEmacs Encoding is certainly used, but how common is it: Surely those requiring such language aren't asking the right person? (Of course, that happens.) Telephone is a different matter, there's no evidence, assuming calls aren't recorded (which requires permission, in many countries).

@user2768 It's country-dependent. "You will be very lucky if you get this person to work for you" can be read as if that person is one lazy bum who will not do any work. Of course, if they have lots of papers and the rest of the reference is fine, this reading variant can be excluded. This does not transfer to Anglo-Saxon countries - here the model of writing references is different.

@CaptainEmacs Another reading is that they'll do loads of work, but it'll be their work, not yours

@user2768 Yep, good point. Didn't see that one.

@CaptainEmacs:  "I cannot recommend X too highly," "We are always looking for job applicants who remind us of X," "X's real talent is getting wasted," "I am honored to say X is a former colleague of mine," "X was fired with enthusiasm," "Nobody would be better for your position than X."

@KCd Well, except for "fired with enthusiasm" which is - almost - played straight, these are just amazingly indirect ones. Thank you for making my day.

@CaptainEmacs I should have expanded the "fired" bit for context: "When X asked me for a recommendation letter, I could tell X was fired with enthusiasm". (Clark Kerr really used "fired" in a double sense: see his Wikipedia page.) Some more: "There is nobody with whom I can adequately compare X," "X sure knows how to hold up this area of investigation," "X filled a much-needed gap in our group," "There was nothing we could teach X about Y," "When it came to giving advice, X was full of it," "Don't waste any time making X an offer," "I endorse X's application with no qualifications whatsoever".

@KCd Yeah, I got the "fired" one in the end, but at first only the negative notion, and, like these optical illusions, only after a lot of moving of the picture back and forth, I saw the other picture hidden inside.

"We can’t you tell from..." -> "We can’t tell from..."

@Kakturus: thanks, fixed!

@CaptainEmacs In the USA, at least, writing a sarcastic referral letter would be dangerous and unprofessional, even if using encoded/ambiguous terms. It could prompt legal action. Much safer to say nothing.

@door_number_three Of course. This is more light relief than anything else.

"top 10 papers he's ever seen from a student in his 20 years of teaching."

That is not them being sarcastic, for one thing the professor should know that sarcasm does not translate well between cultures (and translates very badly when written down, hence why we are even having this discussion as different people believe differently as to whether it is sarcasm or not). Besides the reference gains nothing from sarcasm, if they didn't believe in you then the reference would be a much weaker "I know this person and taught them XX and they scored YY in my class", or they wouldn't have even agreed to write a letter for you.
That is a typical statement I see in reference letter written by American professors, to place the applicant in context with others they have taught. They are simply trying to give their expert opinion on you compared to your peers.
As to applying elsewhere, that's just good practice. Applying for anything in academia is hard and there is limited space. If anything applying to extra places helps you to write better applications, which can then help when you apply to your "dream" location.

That's a good point; if they don't believe in you ,they don't write a letter at all (as I unfortunately found out with the professor I admired most). I just thought the praise seemed disproportionate to the actual paper, but I didn't realize that was typical in LORs.

This is an important point. Reference letters can contain a lot of coded language and not quite mean what one would first think they mean. But they don't contain sarcasm or irony. This just doesn't work in this setting.

@Gemini Besides, if he wanted to really be sarcastic, why not do it properly? "This is surely the single best paper I have ever read, not just among my students, but by anyone in the history of the world!"

Compare to your peers.
If you plot the performance of all your peer group, you'll find it looks like a Gaussian because of the Central Limit Theorem. Then see where you are on that curve. If you're above average, you are suffering from imposter syndrome.
If you scored an "A" on that paper, you should be above average (I can almost guarantee that the average grade is below that, especially if you are in a class that is grading on a curve). In turn that makes your professor's statement that your paper is among the top ten he's seen in the past 20 years more believable, and more likely that you are suffering from imposter syndrome.
By the way, about citing newspaper and online articles, check out reference 1 in this paper, which according to Google has 24,099 citations as of time of writing.

How would one "plot the performance of all [their] peer group", in practice? And what is the definition of "peer group" for which "above average" means "imposter syndrome?" This student wants to know whether they're well qualified for graduate school, and presumably the people considering graduate school are already well towards the right end of the theoretical bell curve...Do you really think there is a random sample of enough such people  for whom the OP has fine-grained grade information (they all get A's!), either all at the same institution or with easy access to normalization factors?

@KevinArlin you pick the metric you care about and plot that. So for example if you care about grades, you plot the grades (or get your percentile in the class); if you care about graduate admissions then you plot the universities your peers are accepted into vs yours, etc. If one is below average then imposter syndrome doesn't apply, since one is genuinely below average (from my point of view that is almost a tautological statement). As for acquiring the data, if one cannot get it from one's institution, there is still standardized exams.

The variable of interest (suitability for grad school) is not quantitative or directly measurable. GRE scores don’t count. Grad school admissions are, obviously, not good enough since the characteristic impostor syndrome sufferer is already at a good department. Further, one has to define an appropriate comparison group, and these students compare themselves to the most successful peers they can find. Your suggestion requires picking a reasonable peer group and comparing on objective indicators of quality, which is just the suggestion “don’t have impostor syndrome.”

As an additional important point: whatever your current state of scholarship and maturity, it is not static.
If nothing else, having observed literally 1000+ grad students in math over the last 40+ years, huge changes occur in people in that 20-28 year-old range. I've seen people who seemed silly and unfocused do amazingly good things a few years later.
And, as always, "failure" is only a temporary state... unless you give up.
Another: if, regardless of what other people are saying about you, you can buy groceries and pay rent by doing what you like, you are a success.
Don't over-think it. I know, academe pointedly makes us doubt ourselves... Not the best feature.

To add to that, I've noticed that it's hard to predict who in a grdmaduate program will even finish, at least at my former grad program. Sometimes the students who seem very promising end up dropping out of the program, and the students who don't follow the standard "approach" end up finishing.

What really bothered me in grad school was the insistence on following a prescribed, structured set of instructions: Going to class, doing specific exercises, etc.

@Mehta, yes, the strangely rigid rules... which, yes, some people think are the essence of math? But, in reality, "rules" are often a clumsy approximation of "sense/good advice", which, of course, is much more nuanced.

I have Impostor Syndrom and I wanted to share a bit on it.
I was considered really brillant during primary school, I had really good grades, but it all went crashing down until I had to retake a year in IT engineering school.
During the duration of this school, I was always on the brink of having failling grades, sometimes I did have some really bad, failing grades. I never had a project which could have made me proud.
Nonetheless, I obtained my diploma and went to work 3 months later. I was fired 5 months later.
I went into depression after 4 month of not finding back any work, despite having multiple interviews. I came to believe I shouldn't have had my diploma.
Even with all I said, now I know. I am worth it.
If you are not sure, ask your former teachers. They don't have any reason to lie to you. Do not look too deep into why you had such or such grades, why others reacted such or such way. As I understand it, it's your own doubt that you see reflected into others.
To be sure, I can only recommend you go see a coach whom you can talk this issue with.
I did not answer the question (how to recognize...), but I wanted to share my feeble experience with someone who might be going by the same phases.

How did you know you had this syndrome?

I talked about how I felt to those around me, my parents, my girlfriend... They told me that I was wrong in believing I had nothing of worth. I was not diagnosed by a doctor if that is what you want to know. But the crippling lack of confidence and self-doubt led the coach I went to see to tell me she had seen many people like me, who iknew things but were too blinded to recognise it. That is when she told me about the Impostor Syndrom.


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What to do when your idea turns out to be an old one
I learned yesterday that an idea (let's call it Idea A) I came up with on my own and that will appear in a paper I'm writing actually appeared in a paper 15 years ago.  (My field is math, I'm a PhD student, for context.)
The paper has other ideas that I think are significant on their own so I could remove the section where Idea A is used crucially.  However, that section helps put the overall results into perspective.  One way or another, that part of the paper should stay put, I think, even at the risk of proving results that some might claim are not really new.  (At the risk of flattering myself, I think the value of the paper will be greater than the sum of its parts: even if you might claim that many of the arguments, like Idea A, aren't hard or appeared previously, I seem to be the first one to see that they could all be combined into a considerable collection of interesting results.)
My question is how to address this in the paper.  Certainly, there's no question the older paper  will be cited and I'll mention it somewhere in the introduction.  It's just a matter of how much credit to give and to what extent it is appropriate to mention that I stumbled upon the idea "independently" of the older paper.  (I understand that "independently" usually refers to results that appear within a few months of each other rather than a decade and a half later.)
To make it slightly more concrete, in the introduction, I was planning to write: "The analysis here is based on the approach in Paper 1 and Paper 2.  However, some additional arguments are necessary to deal with additional difficulties that arise in our setting."  Those additional arguments include Idea A, which I had planned to sketch immediately afterward.  I could then say later, when I give a literature review, that "The idea sketched above appeared previously in Paper 3."  A difficulty with that, though, is Paper 2 cites Paper 3.  While the way I conceptualized the issues involved, Papers 1 and 2 were the starting point, it may be that Paper 3 influenced Paper 2.  One way to fix that would be to say, immediately after "However, some additional arguments...," the following: "(Actually, one of the key ideas here appeared previously in Paper 3.)"  If I write "it appeared previously," is the implication that I came on the idea on my own clear?  (Usually, in cases where other work informed my approach, I would say outright, "this idea was inspired by..." or "it's an adaptation of arguments appearing in..." or even "this result relies crucially on previous work of...")  Another phrasing I have in mind is: "One of the key ideas here, which was new to the author, actually appeared some time ago in Paper 3."
Similarly, I will probably mention Idea A in a conference talk next year.  Is saying something like "This is an idea I stumbled upon and really like.  It turns out that the authors of Paper 3 had the same idea in mind." appropriate?  I would prefer not to think about questions like this, but it's much easier to navigate this kind of issue when you build on others' work knowingly.
Of course, all of this is actually irrelevant as far as the content of the paper is concerned.

Push Idea A into a background section and push novel results elsewhere. There's no real need to explain why you include a background section, but you might like to mention where your presentation differs from the original and explain why.

I seem to be the first one to see that they could all be combined into a considerable collection of interesting results

That's (part of) the novelty your paper provides.

to what extent it is appropriate to mention that I stumbled upon the idea "independently" of the older paper.

You could mention this somewhere, but it isn't necessary. Your paper has changed direction, like many papers. There's no need to provide a history of such changes. (Unless they are particularly interesting to your story.)

I think it's fine to say something in the introduction like "at a late stage of the development of this paper, the paper X, which had previous developed idea A, was pointed out to me."  If you're worried about whether to leave in proofs for the results in paper X, that's a judgement call.  You can always say "we include a new proof to illustrate the techniques we'll use later in the paper" or something like that.
You can actually see a situation where I had to deal with this on the arXiv:  I put a paper called "A new presentation of the cyclotomic Cherednik algebra" https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.05494v1 on the arXiv, and well, it turned out it wasn't totally new.  So in the second version, I changed the name and just explained what had happened: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.05494v2.pdf and changed the wording a bit to emphasize how I was applying the presentation, not just the bare fact of it.


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How are grad.applicants selected after program qualifications are met?
On another post of mine, someone said that the idea of a qualified candidate is "elusive" because there are always more qualified applicants than open spots in any program. I thought that was a valid point, and I wanted to ask how most programs select candidates once they've met or exceeded the minimum qualifications. I know research interests/match of faculty is a factor, but there still must be more applicants than any given advisor can take on. So once the "pile" is narrowed down to most "qualified" candidates, how are they chosen?

For a funded or an unfunded position?

First come first served, or they got the highest grade compared to the other applicants in X particular subject because it is crucial to the job / discipline applied for.

@CJRD- Either. Does it make a difference in the selection criteria?

@SolarMike Is "first come first served" really common? I thought committees would look for smaller and smaller details until they found one that gave someone an advantage.

Also, I think research probably counts more than grades. If, for example, they have a candidate with strong letters praising their research ability but with mediocres grades or one with impressive grades but no research experience, wouldn't the former be chosen? (I don't have any research experience in my intended field.)

@SolarMike If there is a submission deadline "first come, first serve" is probably even legally problematic.

@user151413 if you can provide real details of the process then you should do so, until then, anything else is a guess. And as an outsider how would you go about proving it happened or not?

@SolarMike If the selection is done by a committee and they regularly use such criteria, then eventually this will become known, and they will be in huge trouble.  Regarding the "real details", this is impossible if the question is asked in such generality.  The "real details" will depend on the place. But there is always some criterion, and otherwise, tossing a coin is still less problematic than "first come, first served".

On the basis of speculation as you do, one could just as well say "bribes".

Mor Harchol-Balter has written a fantastic detailed description of the graduate admissions process in selective computer science PhD programs in the US, based on her experience at Berkeley, MIT, and CMU.  her description is also consistent with my experience at Illinois.
Short version: There are far far too many highly qualified candidates to admit them all.  The graduate admissions committee is looking first and foremost for concrete evidence of research potential.  Grades and GRE scores are used primarily as filters and only if they are low.  You need supportive recommendation letters from reliable sources (preferably expert researchers in your target area, who have a reputation for identifying strong PhD students) that describe your research experience and interests, in technical, personal, and credible detail.  Your statement must describe your own research interests, experience, and goals, in technical, personal, and credible detail, and in the idiomatic language of a researcher rather than a student.  Your research interests must match those of someone on the faculty who has advising capacity, and you must look more attractive to that faculty member than the dozens of other applicants who want to work with them.
And then you must get lucky.

FWIW I think the matching research interests is probably field specific - it's not a major criteria in biology from my experience.

This varies widely by university and by field. I'll list a few possibilities.
In some fields a faculty member has to decide to take the student on as an advisee. Such fields as lab sciences often work like this and the professor may provide grant funding in their "lab" for the student. But such fields also sometimes require that the application process is completely done through the professor, with a student making direct application for a spot in that lab.
In many other fields, a committee will make a decision. There may be some attempt to assure that the student interests align in general with those of the faculty. There may be some situations in which a student is accepted because some faculty member "needs" an advisee for some reason. Or, it is even possible, that a faculty member might pick out an applicant and lobby for their admission.
There might even be some consideration to whether the department is trying to boost some research area and chooses students matched in some way with that.
And, in those places, such as the US, where most doctoral students work as TAs, there might be some consideration given to a person's potential to do a good job with that.
Finally, if there are a lot of highly qualified candidates, it might be that letters of recommendation become more important. People are looking for students who will be successful and not require too much "extra" shepherding.
This isn't a complete list, of course. Committee members will, of course, differ in what they look for.

For funded positions the uncompetitive applications are removed and the remaining candidates are evaluated subjectively. Every committee will have different criteria, but for stem fields it tends to go strength of letters (including the prestige of the writer - people I've never heard of count a lot less than people I know), strength of current work, and grades might get used as a tiebreaker. Some places might sneak gre scores in somewhere but that's less and less common. The important thing is making sure the people you commit to funding for 5-7 years will not be a huge pain in the ass and will be competitive when they leave for jobs and fellowships.
Unfunded positions tend to just order everyone by gpa gre and prestige of the school they did undergrad. The important thing is filling the class.


text:
Impact of Master's Degree on Physics PhD Admission in the United States: will I be held to a higher standard?
I am an American undergraduate studying Engineering Physics. I am planning to stay at my current school for a sequential Master's program (in Electrical and Computer Engineering). I wonder if Physics PhD Admission boards would hold me to a higher standard or would hold me to the same standard as other undergraduate applications?
More specific to me, I have excessive amount of Transfer Credit (from classes taken during HS) so that my undergraduate degree only last 2 years, but I don't really want to stay another year or two as an undergraduate. Additionally, I am quite interested in Quantum Computing so I want to get some EE experience.
I am specifically asking about Physics PhD admission in the United States.

Why would you do this?  Once you have a PhD, what will you need the masters for?   PhD students are paid more.

Will the masters program in EE be good preparation for a Physics PhD? If you are doing VLSI design, probably not, but semiconductor physics maybe so.

@JonCuster I am doing a EE Master instead of double majoring in Computer Engineering, so this is what it was about

The other thing is I am interested in Quantum Computing, and I feel like some sort of EE degree would be helpful

Related perspective for CS (so may not necessarily be relevant): https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/467/68109

Do you know if this applies to Physics as well?

You'll be held to the same standard as everyone else - they are looking for people who are going to be successful graduate students.
You mention in a comment:

I want to stay in school longer to get more research experience

I think that's a great way to improve an application in that more research experience gives you more space to demonstrate you'll be a successful graduate student. The number or type of degree earned along the way will mean little compared to the total research and academic experience and proficiency you can demonstrate.

As I stated, my main worry is that I would be held to a higher standard compared to an ordinary undergraduate applicant. Are you saying that this is not the case?

Why would you be held to a higher standard? In any case, I think I've already answered this as my answer starts with "You'll be held to the same standard as everyone else".

I see thanks, I guess someone told me the wrong information

But https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/467/68109

It seems like they have this for CS, would this matter for Physics?

@PXWangEddie Not really the same as your circumstance at all.

I thought it is somewhat similar?

@PXWangEddie You'd like to get a masters degree to give you closer to a typical "time spent at university". OP in the linked question wants to get a masters degree because their academic record didn't start out well. Also only one of the answers there suggested they would be held to a higher standard, and I don't interpret this advice quite as you have. I would interpret it instead to say that you need to show decent productivity with the opportunities you've had.

Okay I see thank you

(I think the question asks:) Will my PhD admission be hindered by an undergraduate and postgraduate degree from the same institute?
Probably not. Although two institutes would demonstrate broader experience, that's a minor detail. Other factors are more important, e.g., grades, your institute's ranking, your rationale for staying.
I wouldn't try to pre-empt any negative perception (in an application), unless it forms part of the backstory. For instance, during my undergraduate studies I became fascinated by X, from [prestigious] Prof. X's classes. We discussed the possibility of exploring the topic further, which led to their supervising my postgraduate dissertation on Y.
(Discrimination laws probably forbid discriminating on such grounds, but the law isn't always followed.)

Certainly a number of engineering undergraduate programs offer a 4+1 bachelors/masters program. Now this is usually aimed at students who don't want to pursue a PhD, while the masters degree is a good terminal degree for many engineering jobs (non-academia).

@JonCuster I have excessive amount of transfer credit from HS so that I am getting my undergraduate degree in 2 years, so I want to stay in school longer to get more research experience (I am aiming for the top schools)

The standards are usually different, you will probably have less time to take quals, 1.5 years vs 3.

I know for a fact that that's not the case in many programs. In fact, in all PhD programs I know of, the only difference between those coming in with a masters with those without, is the course requirements. And in those I know of, with a very relevant masters with overlapping coursework with the required courses of the PhD program, the student might be exempt from taking some of the PhD mandatory courses, and usually only for a few credits. Usually they still need to take as many credits as those without a masters, just replacing those mandatory courses with some electives.


text:
How prevalent are abusive advisors?
I have read lots of posts here about abusive advisors, and I have heard about and even experienced some similar experiences in my own academic life.
Is there any data available for how prevalent this problem is? I am interested in quantitative, objective data to the extent that it is possible to quantify these kinds of things.
To clarify slightly, the kinds of things I would consider abusive could be:

Verbal abuse where the advisor puts their students down in unnecessary and unproductive ways, like name-calling.

Not giving the student due credit for their work or somehow preventing them from making progress.

Discrimination based on race or sexuality. Similarly, discussing or trying to get involved in the student's personal life in an unhealthy way.

Any behavior that normally qualifies as abuse in other relationships and generally shows that the advisor is not interested in advising their students and helping them become a successful academic.

I am not really talking about absentee advisors or advisors who are just kind of blunt that don't display these qualities.

"abusiveness" is not something one can easily objectify. Also, most actions will not be reported.

True, and yet I can easily find many research studies where abusiveness is defined in various different ways and the effects/prevalence are quantified when it comes to, for example, romantic relationships.

How is an answer to this question helpful to anyone other than as a research question? If your advisor is like this, then get away. If they are not, then the prevalence is immaterial.

Reasons: 1. For those considering whether they want to get into academia, this is helpful. 2. For those in academia, who are not students, it is useful to be aware of how likely it might be that this kind of thing is going on in your department so as to better prepare. 3. For me personally, I currently have a very cynical view of academia even though I'm not currently a victim of abuse. I would like to know how justified this cynicism is. I can think of many more reasons but I won't list them here.

A few years ago a PhD student of mine attended a class on the organization (student's side) of the PhD work. At a certain point, the instructor asked how many students in the class had issues with their advisors. I was recounted that roughly half of the students raised their hands.

@MassimoOrtolano I mean I have "issues" with my advisor - he answers email slowly, among other minor things. I wouldn't call him abusive though ...

An unhappy experience does not necessarily equate to abuse.

@AzorAhai--hehim Indeed. I didn't want to imply that all were abusive, but as I understood from the context the issues were more serious than slowly responsive. Still not necessarily abusive though.

@knzhou power users here will resent that you even asked the question: Why would they? And what constitutes a power user?

One's person micromanager is another person's mentor with attention to detail. One's person unresponsive/hands-off advisor is another person's ticket to free-range research. One's person overdemanding/seemingly bullying advisor is another person's enthusiastic motivator. One's person aggressive/pushy advisor is another person's advisor who cares about the student getting enough material to get a PhD. Truly abusive and unethical advisors are probably not as common as it appears - SE will naturally attract people in most serious trouble with their advisors and shows a strongly biased sample.

@CaptainEmacs I suspect you are right which is why I would really like to see a detailed research study on this. On the other hand, I would also guess I'm pretty bad at actually predicting how many truly abusive advisors there are in academia due to reluctance to report them.

@CaptainEmacs by your definition then there is no such thing as an abusive supervisor. You are handwaving the problem away. Personally I believe it is absolutely endemic and one can clearly see a) how academic systems select for abusers and b) how similar academia is to other systems which have been uncovered to foster widespread abuse. Hollywood, Olympic gymnastics, Parliamentary internships in the UK for example. They're all careers starting with close, unsupervised relationships with superiors, where one's subsequent success is wholly dependent on networking. Abusers thrive in such systems.

How abusive are prevalent advisors?

From PhDs: the tortuous truth:

Overall, 21% of respondents said they had personally experienced
harassment or discrimination, and the same proportion reported
experiencing bullying. One-quarter of respondents who identified as
female reported personally experiencing harassment or discrimination
compared with 16% of those identifying as men. The highest rates of
harassment or discrimination (24%) were reported in North America, and
the lowest (18%) came from Australasia.
...
In the survey, 57% of students who said they had experienced bullying reported feeling unable to discuss their situation without fear of personal repercussions.

From A message for mentors from dissatisfied graduate students:

In the survey, 21% of respondents reported experiencing discrimination or harassment. The same percentage also reported bullying. Of those, nearly half said that their supervisor was the perpetrator

It looks like, by the numbers, 1 in 10 PhD students will be harassed or abused in some way by their supervisor. Anecdotally I think that abusive advisors burn through students at a higher rate that normal advisors, so I'd actually guess about 5% of PhD advisors are a serious problem.
I will note that your experience will vary wildly based on gender and race. You are much more likely to find that inappropriate or abusive behavior from faculty as a woman, for example. It's hard to generalize because an advisor who is perfect for male students may be abusive to female or non-binary students.
That said, the abusive part of academia is smaller than the part that isn't abusive, but will apologize for it and gaslight victims into silence. That's the fraction I'd be more interested in quantifying.

That article, while interesting, doesn't seem to directly answer the question, at least from a cursory pass.  There was a survey about harassment and discrimination, but I believe not specifically about behavior of advisors.  At the least, you should say something about how that article helps answer the question.

Yes the article is interesting and relevant but I am actually more interested in the advisor-student relationship because of course people in general experience discrimination and bullying but imo it's a totally different situation if your advisor is the one doing it.

The second article says that of the 20% that report harassment and 20% that report bullying, half say that the advisor is responsible. You're unlikely to find any better source on this - the nature survey is as close to a gold standard as there is.

Oh I didn't see that there were two different links.
I might accept this as an answer if a more specific one isn't offered because it does offer at least a partial answer. It's just that the study is not focusing on abuse and "feeling bullied" isn't necessarily abuse. Although I should say discrimination and harassment do so in that sense the article addresses the question.

If you have some analysis you'd like to do on some threshold for abusive behavior, the full data set is available for that study: https://figshare.com/s/74a5ea79d76ad66a8af8

@CJRD - although a caveat would be that the respondants were 'self selecting' - again, like questions here on advisors, those with poor experiences may be more likely to answer. I'm not in the social sciences, so I don't know how researchers try to balance out that effect.

@pictorexcrucia Perhaps look for articles that cite the two mentioned, for the latter: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=17499925544625025230 (The former didn't come up in my first and only attempt to find.)

Very nice answer!  The error bars on combining those steps are reasonably large, but this is enough to be pretty confident that the answer is say something between 2.5% and 15%.  That is common enough that most large departments have such a person, but rare enough that it does not include the vast majority of advisors.

It's an interesting research question and difficult to answer since many cases are unreported or without details. I agree with the comment by @benxyzzy.
As far as I know, bullying in academia is on the rise. The short answer is: basically there are no specific data records of this kind of abuse and qualitatively speaking this is as prevalent in academia to a level that any PhD student should be self-aware and warned beforehand about the issue. Because this affects human health and academia's reputation.
There are prescribed mechanisms in place to avoid this abuse but they are not practical. Most times the practical solution is to split up the supervision, which goes unreported and does not help the institution.
The Nature survey gives good insights.
Other data sources:

I found this dissertation commenting that there is a vast body of
empirical research on incivility in higher education.
Some student ombudsmen make annual reports like this one from the University of
Oslo.
Tara Brabazon talks about bullying, gaslighting and toxic
workplaces, commenting that there is plenty of research about that.
Some journals on higher education may have empirical data-based
articles like these ones: PhD student-supervisor relationship-Is there
a problem?,
Hierarchical microaggressions in higher education.
Regarding your second point, there are plenty of articles on authorship issues like "coercive authorship" "honorary authorship".

It seems unlikely to me that it’s in the rise.  Much more plausible that it used to be even worse but everyone just accepted it.  But either way it’s just speculation since as you say you don’t have data.

I agree that in the past it was maybe even worse. To be more precise, we should check some references and see whether the supervisor abuse is on the rise or decline in absolute or relative terms, or it is the fact that more/fewer cases are reported. I think the vlog toxic workplaces gives good insights into the evolution of academia in the last 70 years regarding this. There is plenty of research on the effects of the new public management and publication pressure in academia.

International mobility and multiculturality may be another factor to take into account. By now, I agree that the data and studies can give us just quantitative estimations of this phenomenon without statistically significant conclusions.

Yes, the power imbalance is especially bad for people whose immigration status is basically at the whim of the advisor, which makes abusive behavior easier to get away with.

In this interesting book Gendered Academic Citizenship the author identifies
"four ideal-types of academic citizenship: full, limited, transitional citizenship and non-citizenship."
based on new empirical data. Basically supervisors have full or limited academic citizenship, while students have no citizienship.


text:
What is an "evidence based" teaching statement?
(I'm a PhD student in mathematics, for context.)
What do people mean when they say that claims in a teaching statement should be "evidence based?"
For background, I have been watching my wife go through drafts of teaching statements and she has been getting pretty relentless criticism that it's not enough to say, "I design my courses to achieve X, Y, Z," she somehow needs to provide "evidence" that the course achieves these things.  I used to think this meant I should really keep very exhaustive data of how my students were doing (i.e. spreadsheets with test scores), but I'm not sure that's realistic as a PhD in math (as opposed to a PhD student in education).
What can I do now, as an instructor, to facilitate writing an "evidence based" teaching statement in the future?

Perhaps academia.se should require answers to be evidence-based (as skeptics.se does)...

So much work to do to appease the auditor or administrative side. The energy should be focused on revamping the course, instead of these menial clerk tasks.

It's one thing to say that you use evidence-based practices in your teaching (and back that up with citations to the literature) and quite a different thing to say that you've developed your own strategies and proved that they're successful.  I'd expect in most cases that the hiring committee for an instructional position would be looking for the former rather than the latter.

Most of the teaching statements for mathematics faculty positions that I've read in recent years (and I've served on half a dozen search committees in the last 10 years) describe the teaching approach of the candidate without any reference to research on mathematics education.  These statements often state that the applicant's preferred teaching methodology is the traditional lecture, something that is hard to defend in the light of research in mathematics education.

Is this for a job application or for a tenure file?

I think the verbage "evidence-based" is often a little misleading to a STEM researcher. When we hear "evidence", we think of proofs or scientific experiments with significant sample sizes and controlling of confounders. Clearly, such hard data is not usually available in your teaching statement. However, it's also not really what people are asking for when the want to see "evidence" - normally, plausible anecdotal data is entirely sufficient.
More generally, what people often mean when they ask for evidence is that the current text is simply not sufficiently convincing, often because it "tells" rather than "demonstrates". It's not so different to how we tell PhD applicants to write their Letters of Motivation - everybody can write that they love teaching (by itself this is a meaningless, empty statement), it's better to explain what you do that shows that you love teaching.
I can give an example from my own teaching statement for promotion to Associate Professor a while back. The initial version had a paragraph that read something like this:

I redesigned course XYZ and improved student success as well as student evaluations.

I received the fair criticism that I should be providing more evidence, because the current statement isn't particularly convincing. So my final version instead read something like this:

I redesigned course XYZ [explain changes]. After implementing these changes in 2017, the percentage of failing students dropped from an average of 20% to 13%, despite a technically more challenging exam design. Additionally, the course evaluation improved from an average of 3.2 to 4.4. This leads me to believe that my changes were effective, both in terms of student learning and student motivation.

This is clearly not hard proof that my course is now indeed better - maybe my exam wasn't actually harder, or maybe I just got a smarter class this year. But it's a whole lot more convincing than simply writing "I did well".

The funny thing is that this kind of non-scientific evidence is no better than the bald claim, and yet, people find it more convincing. Not intending to criticize you personally, but to truly convince me, either your claim has to be reproducible (i.e. if you teach like this, then you get that results) or it has to be backed by some other independent source (e.g. person X at my university said that it was helpful) that can in principle be checked.

Like other academic disciplines, the literature on education research includes evidence-based results for various teaching methods. The "evidence" being a measurement of student outcomes (how well students achieved specific learning objectives) for various methods in comparison (e.g. active learning vs. lecture). One way to argue for an "evidence-based" course is to cite literature supporting your course design, teaching methods, assessments, etc.

I agree with your concern that sometimes "evidence based" is sometimes tossed out with less-than honorable intention.  Just as on this website the use of "citation needed" varies between useful and snarky.
According to my memory and Wikipedia (proper citation needed), the term was in use in medicine before it was used in education.  Ideally, it refers to policy and population-based medicine more than individual medicine, as patients have a nasty habit of getting a disease not fully studied.
In medicine, there is some push-back from those who think the role of intuition and common sense are now downplayed too much.  See the following and all the follow-up:
[1] Smith, Gordon CS, and Jill P. Pell. "Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomized controlled trials." BMJ 327.7429 (2003): 1459-1461.
In mathematics education (I am a math professor) there is similar tension, especially at the university level.  There are lots of trials, some with good controls, of larger classes, like calculus or Newtonian mechanics 101.  The small number of students who take more specialized classes, and the variations in student populations, classroom architecture, for example, mean that there is never going to be solid evidence from a trial that closely matches a lot of courses.
There is, however, a lot of informed writing on more advanced education that one might call a case studies.  Given limited data, what can we say?  For example, I have read things like the following:
[2] Braun, Benjamin, et al. "What Does Active Learning Mean For Mathematicians?." Notices of the AMS 64.2 (2017).
One can also look for items that cite an article, as there may be rebuttals.
In writing a teaching statement, or a curriculum re-design document, why not take the time to review some of the literature that is relevant?  If you enjoy teaching, you should enjoy some of the education literature.  Notice I said some.  I would say the same about mathematics literature.  Find a few sources you find informative and be sure to balance those out with common sense.  Not everyone reading a teaching statement will be impressed by citations to the literature.

That first article was nice. I work with some former pilots and skydiving instructors. They totally agree that most parachute-related "evidenc"e is purely anecdotal :)