fancypants09

rising_star: Thank you for making this debate a judgement of my personal idiocy with respect to academia. I'm quite shocked and saddened that my desire to discuss a hiring practice in what I have found up to this point to be a welcoming forum has turned into accusations of naivete and hypocrisy on my part. You may know from my past postings that I've never been the one to victimize myself or adopt the woe-is-me attitude during the application process or about the job market situation. I mentioned it in my posting yesterday and I'll mention it again: I've occupied positions of privilege and have seen, from that vantage point, what it means not to have that privilege in the "real world" job market. It's not pretty, but even out there in that jungle that many associate with de-humanizing people, there are rules. Just because a hiring practice is pervasive doesn't make it right. And if anything, I thought this forum with its shield of anonymity, would have been an ideal place to have a critical discussion about it. But clearly I was wrong. I wanted to add a piece about the systemic nature of the problem, but I am tired of trying to discuss the issues involved while defending against unjust personal attacks. rising_star, as an admin to GC and a much senior academic than those who are entering doctoral programs this year, may you me kinder to those who are just entering and not jump to conclusions about their character. Just because someone is entering graduate school now doesn't mean that they are wide-eyed and lack knowledge about how things work in academia (or elsewhere, for that matter). I'm going back to taking a respite from GC because clearly I'm not bright/up-to-snuff for the debate here, but I'll end with an anecdote of someone who did defer a TT position to take a prestigious post doc in the humanities. This person received their PhD from an Ivy League school, and both the TT position and post doc were in top programs. I was having dinner with one of their colleagues with whom I was discussing the post doc + TT position deferral issue, and he mentioned that this candidate was burned by everyone in the field for their behavior because in their particular field, there is an unspoken rule that you do not trample upon your colleague to take it all. The candidate broke ties with their colleagues, assuming that prestigious positions were worth the sacrifice and that their colleagues were simply jealous of their gain. Long and short of it is they were denied tenure at prestigious university and are now teaching at a much lower ranked school that they never thought they would find themselves, and without the support network of former classmates and colleagues.

I'm going to try to keep this short because I need to head off to a meeting in about thirty minutes. Needless to say, more to follow later. rising_star, I've never considered myself naive with respect to the very real inequities involved in employment, be it academic or otherwise. I don't want to belabor the details regarding my own non-traditional path to going back to academia and to a doctoral program, but I think they bear repeating to address this charge of being naive about the realities of the market. I graduated from law school in 2009, right in the middle of the implosion at Wall Street caused by subprime mortgages. I was corporate counsel for one of the Global 500 companies for years. As I mentioned before, I've seen and experienced brutal competition to get and keep jobs. Having worked on major matters for my previous employer, I've also seen and experienced how the actions/decisions of a major multinational affects not only their bottom line, but the bottom line for hundreds of thousands of its employees worldwide, and the health of economies in which the multinational had significant presence. So yes, I'm familiar with extreme inequities and hyper-competition of job markets. What outrages me about the practice I described? Let me try to explain by way of example in the real world. Allowing a "superstar" in the field to accept a post doc and defer a TT position, is the equivalent of allowing a "superstar" banker to accept an internship at JP Morgan and defer employment at Goldman Sachs. It's just not done in the industry, even where there is fungibility of skills. The only other place I've seen somewhat similar practices is in the legal field where if an entry-level attorney for a firm got an offer to clerk for a judge, s/he would defer employment to go to the clerkship first. BUT in this instance the general practice of the firm is much like that of a school with a candidate who accepts but defers; the firm hires another associate to start in the place of the attorney who deferred. There is no such equivalent rule in the academic setting. And to me, if you are not outraged by this practice, you're much like my friend in thinking that (1) you will be that superstar to benefit from the rigged rules and/or (2) the adjunct situation will not apply to you. I'm not going to repeat the debates RE: adjuncting, but I am totally in agreement with the idea that the growing number of adjunct positions, and the growing inequities between adjuncts and TT academics, is unhealthy for all in academia. And VirtualMessage, I actually am aware of most of the other practices you described, but am not upset by them because they're the rules of the job jungle everywhere. Apologies for the disjointed message but hopefully more soon afterwards!

Hello all, I'm back! It's been very hectic since I submitted my acceptance, so I've been relatively quiet as of late. But today I had a conversation with a friend who is currently pursuing her PhD in the social sciences in the US, and had to share it with GC folks for discussion. My friend goes to a top program in her field and just obtained ABD status. She was talking about recent trends in the academic job market for her field as she is aiming to go on the market in 2017. Our conversation confirmed the trend that many GCers here have noted in other threads---that even the competition for post-doc positions are increasingly fierce because many applicants are applying to those and TT positions at the same time. I was not prepared for what she then told me next: In her field, top candidates who get offers for both a prestigious TT position and a post doc will accept the post doc and defer the TT position until after the completion of the post doc. The TT position is technically filled, but with no one to actually start handling the teaching load until said superstar finishes his/her post doc and joins the faculty there full time. I was absolutely furious when I heard this. How is this practice condoned in a profession where there is a scarcity in positions and an abundance of non-fungible talent? Deferring a TT position isn't like deferring school; that vacancy is gone the moment you accept the offer, and the school cannot "take in" someone else from the applicant pool to fill that spot. And it's absolutely sick because I could immediately sense that these deferrals would give universities the justification of hiring adjuncts to cover the teaching. I was also deeply saddened and troubled by the fact that my friend didn't see the adjunct issue at all, simply because she doesn't see herself as someone who would even have to consider the possibility of adjuncting. She thought my concern arose from the fact that the candidate who deferred was somehow cheating the school that gave her the TT position out of obligations tied to that position and said that the deferral contracts generally entail the work that the candidate does during the post doc to be counted as if s/he had done them at the TT institution so that the institution would be able to claim credit for the research. Again, how is this outrageous "winner takes all" practice allowed? Why does the system tolerate the definition of "success" as one academic trampling on the career prospects of another? And mind you, I worked in corporate for the last four years so I've seen and experienced my share of rigged systems and hyper-competition, but this is a new type of greed to me... Sorry this was more of a personal rant than anything else, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks GCers!

So sorry to hear, Dog, when you were so close! Big hugs...and best of luck in the next cycle.

I love this thread so much!! Thanks to all the GCers for the love. And for the waitlisters still waiting to hear, please keep us updated, we are here to support you ❤️❤️

I'm not worried about the drought as much as I'm worried about earthquakes. Heard there were two in LA yesterday?!

Great oh so great! Also heading to UCLA though not in the English department.

Yay second careerists!!! Congratulations and good luck with the move

First, congratulations for getting off of the waitlist, even if it has created a quandary of sorts for you. My two cents: I know there must be a bazillion thoughts running through your head right now as is reflected in your post, but my attention zoomed in on that sentence in the beginning where you said that you and your wife made a pretty firm decision that you would "write off" Brandeis. That, to me, sounds like your decision. The other options you present---variations on the theme accepting and attending---all seem unattractive, seeing as how you would be apart from your wife. And it seems, at least from the facts you've presented, that the reason you would accept Brandeis now would be because it's just "too good to pass up"/you're not sure whether you'd be able to get into a program next year. And just to play the devil's advocate, I'm not sure how easy it is to transfer. It's one thing if you're talking about professional schools where relationships with professors don't make or break careers. But going into a PhD is much like signing up to be the apprentice to your advisor's master, and from everything I've heard about PhD programs is about the importance of the advisor. How do you think your future advisor will act upon you letting him/her know of wanting to transfer for issues you knew to have existed before you accepted your offer?

Hi OP, why are you feeling so desperate? I'm assuming that you are still very young (unless you are a non-traditional student), and you still have plenty of time, regardless of age, before even thinking about grad school.

Congrats 1Q84!!!!!!!!!

Alright folks. After a few days of agonizing over the Harvard waitlist, I decided to take myself off of it and commit to UCLA. I realized that I would choose UCLA even if I did get off the waitlist. I know it's not the same as declining an acceptance offer, but guys, I just turned down Harvard, and it feels...weird but awesome.

I wouldn't engage in any sort of misrepresentation, either. And EnfantTerrible, why do you think it's wrong for the DGS to ask about other schools? The application materials pose those questions, and people are going to find out sooner or later---I mean, all of your professors are colleagues in same or related fields, and you have applied to school to join that field. I don't see how being up front could hurt your chances.

Short answer for me is no. I've talked to the department grad coordinator per instructions regarding admissions set by the department. I will probably email the person again within a few days to check again for movement. For me it's ok not to get off the waitlist; I just want to make a decision after all results are in, that is all.

Respectfully disagree. There are two Francophone African lit superstar specialists in all of America: Christopher Miller at Yale and Francoise Lionnet at UCLA. Other schools may have stronger history departments, but depending on how big the Francophone aspect (and the literature aspect) is to your research, I don't think you can go wrong with UCLA (all other things being equal). Just my two cents.