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Haven't been on the board for a while, but now my daughter, 21, is graduating with her masters and going on for a PhD, I thought I would make a post about the current environment for graduate studies with all the funding cuts.

First, I thought my daughter would go to Harvard, since her father was class of 80. But he died when she turned 8, stopped donating and that counts when you are not donating. She ended up at USC and it was the best thing. She is into ocean stuff. So right off the bat, she gets a job at the Museum of Natural History, across the street from USC, doing marine classification. And she gets a work study job in a chemical oceanography, working for a top oceanographer. She does both for 2 years. She dives so then dives and does research for a professor at Wrigley. Publishes a first author paper on kelp bass in her 3rd year. She actually graduates in 3. But stays another year for her masters. She attends COP30 virtually, she publishes more papers. She has a TA job and was a guest lecturer. It takes all of that to be competitive for a PhD. And she wouldn't have had that without USC. Which was great for her program. And I think particurlarly great for aerospace engineering. These kinds of opportunities were specific to USC and when choosing a college, it is important to align what your kid wants to do with a school and extracurricular options that enhance the educational CV.

Had a soft admit for PhD from MIT last year, then the DOGE cuts. The professor that had funding for a PhD student, suddenly did not. So USC allows her to stay another year and gets her masters -- which she finds out is critical for overseas PhD applications. She is also a dual citizen, Canada and US. She applied to China, Australia, Taiwan, Europe, here and Canada. Professors here said that they did not know if they had funding for themselves, let alone a PhD student. Australia funding was difficult. I made her take Mandarin since she was 5, so China and Taiwan were options, but not first choices. She got into UBC, which is tops for her ocean stuff.


But it was really difficult. Funding is tight everywhere. Europe is tightening. And because of increased military spending in Europe, they have tightened up. Getting into a PhD program now is like winning the lottery. You have to build a connection with a professor who can get funding.

In addition, she got a summer internship with WWF in DC. Highly competitive. So Harvard was not her best option. And if her father had not died, she might have gone there. But it wasn't the right place.

And I am glad she has a field that is not business (i worked on Wall St for over 25 years) and in school while the world is going crazy. She is using Claude for her masters thesis, saying it saves her over 100 man hours in statistical and economic research. Her PhD will use AI in the same way, building a system for fisheries data. I think of all the business jobs that will disappear within a few years. She integrated AI into her thesis since I said that is the only way to get a job when she finishes in 4 years.

Anyway, I just wanted to post her experience with college and PhD applications in the current environment.

Many gifted individuals experience intense mental activity throughout the day. Constant curiosity, deep thinking, and the tendency to analyze everything can be both a strength and a challenge. While this level of engagement often leads to creativity and innovation, it can also result in mental fatigue if the brain rarely gets a moment of rest.

One simple technique that has helped me is intentionally taking short “visual breaks.” Instead of checking social media or reading more information, I step away from stimulating content for a few minutes. Looking at a calm, empty screen or simply giving my eyes a rest can surprisingly help reset my focus.

Recently I found a minimalist tool that provides exactly that kind of pause: https://blackscreen.space
. It’s just a clean black screen, but it works well for brief meditation, eye relaxation, or even reducing light distraction when thinking through complex problems.

For people with highly active minds, these small breaks can make a big difference. Sometimes the best way to process complex ideas is to give the brain a quiet moment before returning to the challenge with fresh clarity.

I'm not a parent yet, but perhaps I'll have kids in the next few years. For now, I tutor students, and many of them have asynchronous development and yet wish to skip grades.

There have been a few main issues that seem to recur:

1) Rigid authorities
I knew many of them would say the students have to be mature socially, emotionally, and physically (compared to their age) as well as academically to skip 1-2 grades, but I know this isn't quite true. Yet some of my students think to not skip because the gap felt insurmountable even when perhaps it might not be. Also I knew many students with disciplinary issues who still wanted to skip - is there a way to advocate for them?

Any tips or help for this? Theoretically they can improve their aerobic capacity and listen to learning materials by Zone 2 and 3 runs and their top end speed by Zone 4 and Zone 5 runs? As for social and emotional maturity perhaps we could find some tolerant people to help improve their social-emotional maturity?

2) A lack of study skills
As similar to Faylie's post - How to get child to actually "study" - I have seen this in many students who think the gap is insurmountable but actually it can be closed with study skills and discipline. Yet I knew students who can't even finish 5 minutes of proper study in one go - any tips for improving this? If they cannot even finish 5 minutes of proper study then how would one manage 2-4 hour exams later on in education?

3) Social backlash (potential discrimination and harassment).
Especially if the students appear to struggle at first even if the struggle was merely temporary that could be fixed by improved studying, or assessing them for 2e (taking into account their developmental level, not chronological age)? Some people said that if they were struggling in their age grade and things they need to learn without the pressures of university-level academics (for middle and high school students) but the alternative is that the pressure of university-level academics is a wake up call for them to improve before they may be on a course of destruction. Does anyone know how to distinguish between these? In some cases the social backlash could meet the threshold of discrimination and harassment so perhaps labelling and official psychiatric letters declaring minors fit for college could be necessary?

Our fourth grader was recently diagnosed with dysgraphia and identified as HG, per the WISC-V and the Beery VMI (which put him in the 7th percentile in terms of Motor Coordination and 18th percentile in terms of Visual Motor Integration.)

He attends an independent Catholic P-12 school, which fortunately has robust resources for learning plans and accommodations. It is not a gifted or gifted-friendly school but based on our initial meeting with the principal, it sounds like they are very open to accommodations even though our son's academic performance is high. (They believe every child should be allowed to demonstrate their full potential.)

We are starting OT in a couple of weeks so we will learn more; but it seems our son's issues are more fine motor based more than anything else.

I am curious if those on this forum have personal experience - either as a parent of a dysgraphic learner, or perhaps being dysgraphic themselves - with software applications to assist with speech-to-text, math (e.g., ModMath), mind mapping (e.g., Miro), or writing generally. And if so, which ones would you recommend for a bright fourth grader, based on your direct experience?

It is overwhelming the number of applications out there. Which is a great thing, of course. Thank you in advance for helping us crowdsource a more curated list that I can then go further research!