Eigen

So you're paying a lot of money for a world class education, but you don't trust the people who are giving you that education to know what they're doing, such that you question your assignment even before your first day?

I feel for you, but to be honest if one of our first year graduate students was assigned a rotation, went for a day, and then told the graduate advisor that they didn't think they could learn anything there, they'd likely be met with skepticism as well. The idea being that you didn't give it a lot of time, nor are you really in the best position to know where you can and can't learn something. Also, I would be very careful about falling into the trap of considering your tuition money as paying for a service, rather than paying for access to an education.

As others have said, I can envision scenarios in which this is perfectly normal, and those in which it's ethically shaky. To come at it from a lab sciences perspective: If I have a protocol to couple two chemicals together, and I run it on 60 different pairs of chemicals, I'm not likely to report the 59 that didn't work- I would report the 1 that did, and maybe some stand out examples of the others either as controls, or if I learned something significant from them. Now, on the other hand, if I'm testing a novel cytotoxic drug on different cell lines, all of which it should kill, and it only shows a reduction in viability of 1 out of the 60 I tested, then only showing data for that 1 would be fishy. So a lot of it depends on what the difference in the data sets is, what the experiment was, and what caused it to work/not work on all of the above. And if you think there's a valid alternate hypothesis, personally, I'd think of a way to test something that might differentiate between the two possible interpretations. Usually, the act of research is to figure out something (a framework of ideas, a procedure, a bit of code, a theory) that works. When it comes time to publish, you are primarily sharing what *worked* with the larger community in and out of your field. Sometimes it can be helpful to share examples of things that didn't work, and sometimes it can be helpful to publish that nothing worked (aka Journal of Negative Results), but primarily you're sharing something you discovered that works.

I can't imagine that this would have the slightest effect on your score, to be honest.

I can say all of mine were reviewed, because I got offers everywhere I applied. But I applied selectively to places I had good fits.

You keep making strawman arguments. It doesn't make your points any more logical, or your assumptions any less fallacious.

Actually, I believe you said several pages back that they deserved more than a cursory examination, but to be thoroughly examined. And I can guarantee you that "processing" at most universities includes sorting and ranking by pertinent information, before it makes it to the admissions committee. There is no application that goes completely ignored or unopened. Heck, our department even looks at applications that come in after classes have started for the academic year. Doesn't mean we'll take them, but we'll at least look. To add more fuel to the fire, sorting many international students by GRE scores just doesn't happen. Cheating for GRE exams in some parts of the world is so widespread many schools don't take them seriously, and consider them completely differently on a country to country basis. As to the international vs domestic argument in cost:benefit terms, there are a couple of other things to consider- obviously some apply more to some countries or cultures than others: At least in some parts of the world, research (esp. safety) standards are quite different from the US. Most international students take a lot longer to get to working in the lab than US students. Academic honesty/dishonesty issues can be more of a concern due to cultural differences. From a prestige standpoint, not as many are interested in continuing as international academics, thus diminishing the future returns the school gets from it's alumni. Bulk of the applications many schools receive are from international students, and most schools have policies like this in place to keep the ratio of international to domestic students around the 1:1 range.

First, there is nothing anywhere that says the email was written by an admission committee member. Most schools don't disclose who's on the admissions committee. It was likely written by a program coordinator or graduate secretary, who may or may not know exactly where in the process things are. Second, you can make it a real world problem all you like, but the truth is that you're inferring things from an email that were not there, and judging accordingly. Kind of like inferring that the email was from the admissions committee, despite there being no evidence of that, at all. And as I've pointed out with your "real world" problem, in the actual real world of graduate admissions, there are always spots that open up late in the season for qualified applicants. I'm positive that in February they didn't have signed acceptances from everyone who they extended an offer to, which makes the next set of applicant files those that will be reviewed and ranked in case some from the first set don't accept (usually 30-50% don't accept an offer). Again, there is no direct evidence that any student did not have their file reviewed.

Strawman arguments don't really help your case. Nothing you've shown so far indicates a zero probability of acceptance. The fact that at least one international student was admitted, in fact, shows the opposite.

And as I've pointed out, they may still review the rest of the records for any outstanding students to either wait list or find some way to admit? Just because the first wave, which may include some international students, can fill all the slots they have available by default does not mean that any applications weren't reviewed.

I completely agree to the taking at least two weeks off a year. It just depends when you take them. I find a lot of our newer students are of the opinion that they can take off all the University holidays and then take off another 2-3 weeks a year, when both count as vacation. Personally, I prefer to take more partial vacations (work fewer hours during the week, enjoy my weekends and evenings) and take less chunks of time off, as I find it makes my life a lot more manageable long term. But I do try to take at least 1 full week off a year for a good vacation. Depending on our department, our handbooks actually specify we get two weeks off, as well as the University closure times. Some departments don't give grad students off the University closure times, just the two weeks per year. University closure times are not the same as semester vacation periods, though. For instance, our University just closes from the 25th to the 1st- all full time employees are back on the second.

You don't seem to be learning from the above responses. All PhD programs in history will be different, as will all MA programs. They will not all have the same length of time to degree, nor will they have the same teaching requirements or times. This is something that you seem to be having a hard time grasping, and it's an important basic to understand if you are interested in pursuing an advanced degree.

The email(s) from the OP have done nothing to demonstrate that there were any international students who did not get a review. As to why the application fee is for processing and not a "meaningful" review- it's who it pays. The processing is done by a full time employee who takes, sorts, collates and checks application packages. Their salary is largely covered by the application fees. The "meaningful" review is done by a committee of faculty who receive no compensation for reviewing your applications. If your application was received, processed, entered into the system, sorted, and made it to the admissions committee, that's what your application fee paid for. If the admissions committee took a quick glance at your application, and didn't like the GRE scores, saw you were from a country they'd already taken enough students from, or that they couldn't support and tossed you into a rejection pile, you have gotten the service you "paid" for. As to whether application fees are worthwhile or not.... I think a lot fewer borderline cases would get review without it. The full time person who processes applications for our program is likely to pull out one or two as she gets them that might not make the cutoffs that are otherwise in place, but stand out as deserving a review. The alternate would be to not have application fees, not have that person, and have a computer system with strict cutoffs. I think it would serve a lot of people much more poorly. The other alternative would be to only take people by referral from an academic who has worked with that student and knows them, I suppose, but I don't think that would serve the majority of students well either. Paying $20-$100 to have someone take the time to correctly process your application, pending giving you hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition waivers and stipends seems like a very small opportunity cost to me.

Also, as has been pointed out in this thread, they did review international applicants this year, as at least one got in. So the evidence points to the fact that they did at least review all the applications the received, you just didn't get accepted. Also, "you have a right to be upset" does not equal "unethical". There are lots of things you would have a right to be upset about that are perfectly ethical. Doesn't mean they might not upset you.

Just because my post addressed two different points does not mean my post is contradictory. On the first part, a fee does not entitle you to a review. It's for processing, it does not pay for the admissions committee to review your application. On the second part, even if the fee does not entitle you to a review, you might still feel put out if your application wasn't even reviewed. As to your second paragraph, I don't know why people seem to bring application fees into this. It's not like the school makes money off of them, it's not like anyone in the department sees that money and it pays a salary. The fee is for the graduate school to process and file your application. That's it. And yes, I think with or without the fee, you would have a right to be upset if the institution tossed your application without looking at it. But there's absolutely no evidence that that happened here, or has happened anywhere else.

Work. I took 3 days off for Christmas over a weekend, and then another 3 days off for New Years last year. Other than that, stayed in the lab.

The application fee is not to have his application reviewed. It's to cover the costs of processing his application. This has already been said, several times. Similarly, the leap from "frequently" to "always" isn't a good logical one to make. The OP never got any direct confirmation that the admissions committee did not look at his, or other, international student applications. Chances are, they looked at them generally before the first round of invites, to see if there were any outstanding international students that they might want to make an exception for. Generally, schools can fall into tight spots because most extend more offers than they can take students, to start with, knowing that a percentage of the students won't accept. Most schools have the flexibility to take one or two more students than they had planned. If, for some reason, the acceptance rate was unusually high in their first batch of invites this year, they may not have had room anyone else. It sucks, but it's not particularly unfair. Also, I see a lot of logical gaps- you seem to be inferring that US citizens living abroad would not be considered in the first batch, but I don't see any evidence of that from what you've given of the schools policies. Domestic usually refers to US citizens, no matter where they're living.

To shed some light from what I've gotten from our graduate office: most schools that ask do so to protect themselves from potential lawsuits, not necessarily because it will bias or change their admissions. But yes, I would definitely have one of your letter writers address it for schools that ask for a disclosure.

Just to clarify, the 20 hours per week is your assistantship. The other work you do in your lab, for your dissertation, etc. is likely a great deal more. The reason you're paid so well for 20 hours of week per work is to free up your time to complete your studies, which is usually why a no compete clause exists. You also have to factor in the cost of your tuition waiver in whatever you're being paid, as it's technically compensation and part of the same package, as well as any benefits in terms of health insurance.

Hey All: I just got this forwarded to me from my school's engaged learning and teaching division. It's a MOOC developed by CIRTL (Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching & Learning), which is a cross-university effort. This course in particular is developed for senior grad students, post-docs and junior faculty to help develop teaching pedagogy in STEM fields at the college level. Free enrollment, but it's suggested to form a learning community with other graduate students and post-docs at your school to get the most out of it. https://www.coursera.org/course/stemteaching Enjoy. If anyone else does sign up, let me know- might be nice to have an ongoing discussion here in addition to the course forums.

Again, this completely depends on your department, program, funding stream, etc. For instance, in my PhD program some students teach 20 hours a week (generally, 2-3 lab classes) each semester until they graduate. Others are completely supported on research funding and will not teach at all. Graduate education and faculty jobs are not easily generalizable, it depends on the contract, position, etc.

Some more clarification- they're no longer paying you enough to cover tuition and fees? That seems really unusual. All of my comments were in relation to a reduction in stipends, not a reduction in tuition/fee remissions. Are you at least part time/0 time and eligible for significantly reduced/no tuition and fees? At my school once a PhD student in the humanities reaches candidacy, they don't pay any fees, and pay next to no tuition, as they're taking no classes. This is also generally why stipends are cut, and they tend to get hired on as adjuncts instead. If you're a candidate and they're not covering your tuition/fees, I'd definitely make a stink about it. My first suggestion would be to talk to other graduate students in the same school (I assume Liberal Arts), and see if it's a department thing or a school thing. Then, talk to your graduate student association, provost, graduate school, etc.

Depends what you mean by outliers. Humanities overall, as of 2003 in the data you linked are at 9 years average. Social sciences are 8. 10 isn't a huge outlier with a mean of 9. If you take, say, the 2012 brief (http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/sed/digest/2012/nsf14305.pdf) it's only recently that humanities have dropped below a 10 year average time to degree, and then only barely.

But if you take, say, history or English PhDs, the average time to PhD is 10 years, and the average time for full funding is 4-5. You're looking at this from a very science centric standpoint, IMO.

For the humanities, reduced funding for ABD's is not us uncommon as it is for the sciences. Most of the programs at my university fund the first 4-5 years (which is usually the point at which students are ABD). Once ABD, the students aren't obligated to be on campus, and some even find full/part time faculty jobs while still ABD. Accordingly, funding is more usually reduced at that time.