swisnieski

I remember reading that 2000 or so awards are being issued this year.

Hey all -- I applied for a GS-14 job with the federal government doing statistical work. I just got my OPM rating back and I have no idea how to interpret it. It's 82; the possible score apparently ranges from 70 to 100. I have the awful feeling this means I'm rated as underqualified. Anyone in the know on this?

I'd lean toward #2. For starters, it's cheaper and more time-effective than pursuing a terminal master's and then having to repeat all the work if you get admitted to a four-year Ph.D. program. It's certainly my plan (mainly because I want to change my research focus anyway). I'd spend the intervening year improving my GRE scores, taking the subject test, finishing my current research project, and most importantly, taking a graduate stats class to demonstrate my proficiency in statistics.

The discussion inspired me to start mining the literature for info on the topic, and here's (some) of what I've found: From W.J. Boldt and J.B. Stroud's study "Changes in the attitudes of college students": Worth noting is that the study DID NOT track students through school, hence the caution in interpreting the results. Another study (no PDF, only an abstract available) by D. J. Hanson et al. (oddly enough, also entitled "Changes in the Attitudes of College Students") found that there was no "turnabout" from "radical attitudes of the late 1960s" but noted an increase in pessimism.

The best argument against Marxism is that it is unable to accommodate itself to human nature -- hence its tendency to devolve into ugly tyrannies everywhere it's attempted. But that's beside the point. Leftism isn't the sole recourse of brainiacs, hence the reason universities functioned for generations in America without cranking out leftists in large numbers. Hence, liberalism among college students and professors cannot be said to be solely a function of education. And no, I did not say that liberals are the product of such an environment. (Many don't go to college). I'm saying that liberalism is naturally going to thrive in such an environment. You don't really believe that students addled on free sex and frat parties will embrace a political ideology that frowns on free sex and frat parties, do you?

There are plenty of colleges (especially in the south and west) where there is no "liberalizing" effect (if you take liberalizing to mean shifting their political attitude to the left). And moreover that liberalizing effect, to the extent that people go to college stupid and come out Marxists, is a relatively recent historical phenomenon. It's just as likely that the liberalizing one sees of students is a product of their exposure to a valueless vacuum bereft of consequences and characterized by loose sexual morals, egged on by weekly binge drinking.

EFC is expected FAMILY contribution. It includes not only the average payment toward tuition for a family of that size and income but also such things as providing food, housing, transportation, etc. In short it encompasses everything your parents do for you that can conceivably contribute to schooling (even if you live on campus you are still legally living at home).

What was the most annoying part of your entire application process? I have to say despite the obvious annoyance of studying for/taking the GREs, hounding profs for LORs, and waiting weeks for responses, the thing I hated most was contacting a prof and getting a generally useless response.

Agreed on this point. Sociology and virtually all of the identity studies fields are basically predicated on leftist ideas so it's not so surprising that they are as overwhelmingly left-leaning as they are.

I lean toward this because you've only been together 4 months. But if you think you two can make it, then absolutely go for it. Never, ever, ever give up something good just because of distance.

I'm not altogether sold on the notion of typecasting, either. Within living memory there were large numbers of respectable conservative professors in fields as "soft" as English literature. There is no particularly compelling reason why conservatives would be disinclined to study the great books of the Western literary and philosophical canons. I've heard enough horror stories out of academia to believe that there is some kernel of truth to the idea of systemic discrimination against conservatives in hiring and tenure practices. As for my own beliefs... well, see LateAntique's response.

Not only will enrollments decline, but the number of awards is also going up! So competition for awards is decreasing even as competition for available grad school slots is increasing. Possibly many people will wind up in this situation.

FWIW to anyone interested, I e-mailed the NSF GRF operations center and asking about what would happen if an applicant were awarded a fellowship but denied admissions everywhere. Their response:

All you needed to do was put the test registration number in the application and signify that you agree to release your scores to them. They arrange to have ETS send the scores to them, and they pay the fee for doing so.

I use vague descriptors because they're generally more salient. I don't tell people I got my BA from Shepherd University; I tell them I got my BA from a small, not very prestigious liberal arts school on the east coast.