falafelizer

the site

declined an offer from SIU Carbondale, hope that helps somebody.

I think the name and slogan unite a common interest (grad stuff) with the notions of openness, availability, and friendliness. Compact and inviting, imo. Gotta love what coffeepls said. Though in my experience that motto tracks the circumstances connected with us being here rather than what the forum itself is about.

I am so super sorry if what I said came off as even the least bit argumentative. That was me trying to explain why it wasn't making sense to me and asking for a clarification. All you've contributed to my question has been helpful; I'm familiar with Baylor's program and in fact applied there and am on the WL. That your insights came from Francis Beckwith I will take to heart. Most appreciative thanks for your contribution and for clarifying. Very best wishes to you this season as well ?

Thank you Spinozian. That's precious advice, and your wishes are warmly appreciated.

To add important info: the school which made me an offer has a solid placement record for permanent positions, which they publicly share on their website. It's just usually small schools, which I consider fine enough if that's what it comes to; research placements are the rare exceptions here The school also has outstanding faculty, many of whom have published in the top journals and been awarded grants from NEH, NAS, and so forth. Its main disadvantage is that its strengths are niche rather than mainstream. So on one hand I assume they want what's best for me as a student; on the other hand I'm sure they would not be thrilled if a student left their program for another with better job prospects. It's deeply conflicting for me to try to hold both of these claims together. Arghhhh!

Thanks for responding Needle in the Hay! It looks like 4) depends largely on 2) and 3) here. And of the schools I listed I think Riverside does the worst at permanent placement (42%) without differentiating between SLAC's and research departments; whereas the institution where I am admitted has a 38% placement into permanent spots. To me, that looks like enough to raise doubt about 2). But that's with the caveat that you did say placement "starting out," and the figures I gave reflect not that, but the ultimate (best) result to date. As far as 3), I would like it to be true, but departments would not forget to include that kind of information in their placement records, which unfortunately do not seem to bear out that claim. I'd love to see some counter examples, but I haven't found any in the records of the 26 schools where I applied this season. Could you give me a few examples, please? Otherwise, as it seems now, 3) is also suspect; accordingly, so is 4). It still seems like (unless I'm missing something about what you meant) I can only do better by accepting the offer and applying out for the next couple of seasons.

Thanks for the insight, Glasperlenspieler! There's much merit in what you point out. My thought was that I might not spend extra time trying to impress an adcom who's only bound to turn their nose up at my MA despite my school's recent placements into Rutgers, somewhat recently into Stanford, and regular placement into Texas, for example. So let's say, hypothetically, for at least one of the schools listed, I have a strategy mapped out to set myself up for an admission: say I pick two professors at each school and I figure out a way to connect their recent work with my interests in this cool way that I can use as the missing piece that ties my sample together. Ok, now that's do-able, but it is a lot of work to do for 8-10 schools while also trying to make a unique and convincing case for your place at each. So it's not so much a yea vs nay as it is an attempt to gauge the appropriate proportions of energy spent on angle-working for each school I'd like to attend- even if that might mean putting more effort into trying to impress a notoriously MA-hostile school. But I may be overthinking. Your advice about trying to predict odds still applies, and yet it must also be true that making connections with faculty in my AOI can substantially increase my odds. Maybe I'd be better just basing my efforts on degrees of fit beyond my primary AOI; there are some schools where my some of my more pluralistic interests would make it a significant challenge to fit into broader department life. They all have specialists in my top AOI so that's no matter.

Hi all. I had mixed results this season. I was accepted to a department that is a perfect fit for my wild combination of interests, but without a specialist in my primary interest. However I do not want to rule out the option of a career in research which would be extremely difficult given this (unranked) program's placement record into research positions; excluding their own department they have about one placement into a research department every three or four years. I just successfully defended my MA thesis at a PGR-recommended terminal program and my advisors feel that I have a good shot at getting into a ranked dept with a specialist if I try again and revise my thesis into a sample. Are there any ranked programs which are particularly averse to MA holders? The depts I'm considering are: UC Riverside, UC San Diego, Brown, NYU, Stanford, Texas, Columbia, Princeton, Chicago. I have seen terminal MA's have decent placement into UCR, UCSD, and Stanford, but I'm not so sure about the others. Also, it is possible I will accept the offer I have received and try my luck getting into these departments in the future. My thought is that I can content myself with a PhD from the unranked department and a tenured position at a small school if I have to; from there it can only get better and I can only help myself by applying out in the future (obvs. using my MA letters). What would you do if you were in my position? Thank you.