ZeChocMoose

The one place that I didn't get into for my PhD admission cycle was the program where I only fit one of the faculty member's research interests and the program did not emphasize my preferred methodology. It was disappointing at the time - but looking back on it, the program would have been a terrible fit for me which the admission committee happen to see before I did. To answer your other question, my advisor and I have very similar research interests, but I tend to study policies at the local and state level and she tends to study them at the federal level. In general, we study a bunch of the same topics though just in different systems/environments/contexts. I understand how disappointing it can be to not get in the first time around especially since you came really close. It took me two times before I received a PhD acceptance. If you have been communicating with your POI, I would also reach out to her and ask her how you can strengthen your application for next year. I also recommend listing a couple faculty that you would like to work with because eventually you'll need to form a committee of a couple faculty members for your dissertation.

Yes - that is what tipped me over the edge too. You don't need to be appointed as an "official" adjunct faculty member to give a guest lecture, serve on a dissertation committee (at least at the universities I have attended), mentor students, or be a professional contact. The recruitment and evaluation process for these zero-time adjunct positions makes me think that they are rolling this out to address their financial crisis and to backfill for faculty that they can't hire due to their lack of funds. I also read the university's response by the interim provost and vice chancellor justifying this because "the use of adjuncts is not unusual on our campus and in higher education generally." True - it's common, but doesn't make it a good practice and its skips over the fact that adjuncts are paid for their labor. Full response here

I agree with @FishNerd I haven't seen that many rooms for rent in a house/apartment either on Zillow. I typically only see that on Craigslist. For what it's worth, that would be market-rate for a decent-sized 2 bedroom or small 3 bedroom house/apartment in my college town. So yes, it's possible to get the whole place to yourself at those rates if you are moving somewhere with a low cost of living. Usually on Zillow it has a short blurb about the place so it should explain if it is a roommate situation or not.

I agree with t_ruth. You are going to need a really convincing statement of purpose that addresses why a PhD in Education makes sense and is necessary for your career goals. Also you need to identify faculty that you want to work with at each of these institutions. I sat on a couple of admissions committees back when I was a graduate student and the applicants with limited education experience had a difficult time getting admitted. My guess is that you will end up getting referred to the master's program.

I read the original email that was posted by the Professor Is In and the email was all about recruiting alumni for these positions and asking departments to come up with a list of candidates with the expectation that each department should submit at least one nominee. The email also mentioned that the zero-time adjuncts would teach classes, serve on dissertation committees, and other university work... Here's the excerpt from the email that the Professor Is In posted: "These blanket zero-time adjunct graduate faculty appointments are for 3-year periods, and can be renewed. While specific duties of alumni adjuncts will likely vary across academic units, examples include service on graduate student thesis committees, teaching specific graduate or undergraduate lectures in one’s area of expertise, service on departmental or university committees, and collaborations on grant proposals and research projects." and: "The Alumni Association is already working to identify prospective candidates, but it asks for your help in nominating some of your finest former students who are passionate about supporting SIU. Please reach out to your faculty to see if they might nominate a former student who would meet HLC accreditation guidelines for adjunct faculty appointment, which is someone holding a Ph.D., MFA, or other terminal degree... The University hasn’t yet attempted its first alumni adjunct appointment, but this is the general mechanism already in place. Meera would like CoLA to establish a critical mass of nominees before the end of the summer. A goal of at least one (1) nominee per department would get us going." I am not sure how that would be a big misunderstanding... it seems pretty clear that SIU is trying to recruit alumni into these positions without pay to do the work of faculty.

Yea, Zillow is one of the better sites in my experience and tend to have better stock than Craigslist in my college town. The market is very fast where I live especially for reasonably priced units within walking distance of the university so I second the recommendation to call immediately when you see something you like. I also follow up via email if I cannot reach someone through calling. I have also tried Trulia - they are like Padmapper as they aggregate listings from other sites.

My first multi-state move for grad school was fairly easy because I had no furniture or a car so I just flew down to my new city and couch surfed at my friends before I could find an apartment. I want to say it took me a week or so to find an apartment (and a roommate since it was too pricey to live on my own). Then I went to IKEA with a borrowed car and bought a bedroom set. They delivered it a couple days later and I was good to go. This was about a month or so before school started since my assistantship started in the summer. By the time school started, I felt fairly settled in the new city and I knew campus decently well too. The subsequent moves after acquiring furniture, a car, and a pet were much more complicated...

We all want what is best for our friends especially when we think that they are making choices that are going to make their situation worse not better for them. Since you mentioned that you have already talked to her about the pros and cons of changing programs and it presumably did not change her mind - I think that is all you can do. She knows your opinion on the matter and she is choosing to change programs because of valid reasons to her. Perhaps they are not logical or make no sense or aren't going to work. But like you have said, it's her life and it's her choice to make. While I don't think there is anything wrong about being worried about your friend, I do think you need to respect what her decision is and stop trying to get her to see your point of view/change her mind/etc. It wasn't clear from your post whether it was one discussion or multiple discussions that you kept on having with her. If it is multiple conversations, you need to drop it. Ultimately, she doesn't need your permission to change programs and trying to convince her that she is wrong and you are right may drive a wedge in your friendship. Instead, I would ask what she needs to help her with the transition.

In the two college towns that I have lived in, end of April was starting to move into the late end of reserving a spot for the fall. These were places, though, where there was a limited stock of rentals and some rentals would ask you in late Fall/early Spring term if you were coming back for the next year. Way too early in my opinion - but apparently it is not uncommon in college towns to ask tenants if they are going to release the place - only months into their current lease. I have also lived in cities were 60 days before you were going to move was ample time to find a place. I would think that St. Louis would operate more like a city than a college town in terms of when you needed to start looking, but current graduates students there would be your best resource. If they tell you that you need to secure something sooner rather than later, then I would borrow money for the deposit and find a place off-campus. You could also cover all your bases and ask to be placed on the waitlist for on-campus housing in case you are having difficulty finding something off-campus.

Do you have to apply for the PhD program at school A or is it an automatic process to continue on to the PhD? If you have to apply - what is the likelihood of getting in? I know a bunch of master's students enroll at my former department with the hope of being accepted to the PhD program when they graduate, but usually only 1-2 of those students get in every three years or so - so the likelihood is not great and ends up with a lot of disappointed folk. For school B, I would ask them what schools/programs do their master's students attend for PhD programs? Would you want to go to those schools?

If I understand this correctly, you don't actually have an offer from the waitlist school, though. This is just a hypothetical situation? I would follow your MA thesis advisor's advice and be content with the offer that you do have. If you end up getting in off of the waitlist during the summer, then yes, you'll need to weight the pros and cons at that point and make a decision. I have known of students that have changed their minds during the summer and went to a different PhD program. It's rare, but it happens. And yes, the faculty tend to remember it because it's unusual and some cases, the dept loses that funding slot for future students (depending on how the funding is set up). Whether that has a long term negative effect on the candidate who broke their promise, I suppose that is hard to say - but given how competitive getting an academic job is, I would want to be 200% sure that school B will be so much better than school A before I broke my promise to attend school A.

If the university is on the semester system, then usually one year equals two semesters. They could mean fall - spring - summer - fall - spring as 5 consecutive semesters Mostly likely they made fall - spring - fall - spring - fall so 2.5 years especially if they do not offer coursework or only offer a limited number of courses in the summer semester. You should be able to find the answer to these questions on your department's website or by emailing the department staff.

Have you got to talk to the current students of the new program? Have they mentioned any pros or cons? My guess is as a new program there will be more uncertainty about program offerings/process; the faculty might be more inexperienced compared to other programs; lack of reputation (or knowledge) of the program might hurt your job prospects. I think all of these can be mitigated - but the program needs a strong plan to address these issues so I would ask them what their plan is and how they are adapting it as things change. On the flip side - the faculty might be more invested in the students since you are the first classes and they want to ensure that you all will have jobs after you graduate and be relatively satisfied with your time in the program. There also might be starting funds that the program can leverage from the university to have more resources - which can translate into a lot of different ways to impact the quality of life in the program.

Another vote for School A. You'll be happier, more productive, and have less debt when you graduate. All good things if you want to continue on to the PhD or honestly just for life. You can always apply again to School B for the PhD if the PhD students have a better deal/are treated better. Which program has better ties to industry? Academic reputation doesn't matter as much in industry - it is all about the skills that you bring to the table. Although if students at your School B are actively miserable too - I wouldn't pick them. If all the students are miserable - that is going to make for a really toxic environment.

I have hired a professional mover twice for my cross state moves. First one was from the East Coast to the Midwest and it was around $2,300 for a 1 bedroom apartment. I had a great experience - no damage and they were very professional. They couldn't give me an exact date for when the stuff would come, but it was a range of a week I want to say, and they call you the day before to say what they are dropping off. It took about 2 weeks for my stuff to get there. The second move was from the Midwest to the South and it was about $3200 for a 2 bedroom apartment. My professional movers actually packed it in cubes instead of putting it on a large truck. They were able to tell me the exact drop off date which was nice, but it was still about 1.5 weeks from when they picked up. Unfortunately, they didn't pack the cubes very well so there was a lot of damage to my stuff. I got reimbursed for all the damage (around $1K) but it was a lengthy process because I had to fill out a lot of forms, document the damage, and have insurance adjusters come by to see what can be repaired and what could not be. My advice is you need to do a lot of homework on each company - get an in-person quote, make sure the company is licensed, bonded, and insured (at minimum), ask for a binding quote if you are not going to do cubes so they can't change prices on you, and ask for references from the company of recent customers. They should also give you free boxes or a stipend towards boxes. I always got 3-4 quotes and then chose a quote in the middle that seemed to have the best reputation.

My grad school would not let graduate students enroll in classes if they had not received their immunization form so I would check to see what the policies are for your school and not assume that they will be lax on it - especially since this is a state law and not an internal policy.

I know that you said the funding packages are the same - but what is the median time to degree for both programs? If it is over 5 years - how do students fund themselves? Sociology PhDs can get positions in ed schools, but usually those people have full-time experience in education, which you are not going to have. I see this being a bigger problem at smaller schools especially if they have their professors teach across different programs e.g. in teacher education and education policy, but this won't be doable for you since you never worked in K-12 education. Another option if you chose the Sociology PhD - there are some public policy schools that hire sociologists assuming that their research interests align well. I would also take a look at current job postings for assistant professors in each field to see what they are looking for and whether each program will help you gain those experiences. I would also look at non-academic job postings just so you can get a sense of what is out there in case academia doesn't work out. Education is ripe with non-academic jobs. I am not familiar with what sociology PhDs do for non-academic jobs. I also think you should think about what types of courses that you would want to teach and what type of theories/theoretical frameworks that you would want to use in your research. Also - which core curriculum is more interesting/exciting to you?

I know that rejection stings so I understand that you are disappointed. As the other posters mentioned, it doesn't get better when you go on the academic job market. In a couple of cases, I never received any notification/follow up/rejection after campus visits for tenure track faculty/post doc positions. I thought that was a bit odd, but from talking with others it seems par for the course. The generally good thing about grad school applications is usually they inform you of their decision even though it may not have come in the way that you hoped.

Going straight on from undergraduate to PhD in education is really not recommended. It will make it a lot more challenging to find a job when you graduate because you won't have any full-time experience in education. You should look at academic postings in your subfield to see what they are requesting for tenure-track assistant professors. The ones that I have seen lately usually state that the candidate needs to have x number of years in education - sometimes often saying this needs to be as a K-12 teacher, school administrator, curriculum coordinator, etc. Sometimes that is for accreditation reasons or due to the kind of courses they want you to be able to teach and the type of mentoring that their students need. Getting a master's degree and then working for a couple years is a good idea before you go back for the PhD. It will improve your chances at the highly selective PhD programs and lead to a better first job after graduation. The problem with any 1 yr master's is that you'll need to start applying a couple months into your new program (assuming you are not taking any time off). You'll have to be really strategic about making connections with faculty to get decent recommendations - and it might be hard to get a strong recommendation since they will have only known you for a couple of months. When I was on the admissions committee for my program, applicants that got a boost had research experience in the field. (I did my PhD at a research intensive place though.) Pedigree of one's master's degree wasn't something that came up as important. It was helpful when the committee knew your recommenders which tends to happen when the program is more well-known. If you were going into the academy - it might make sense to do a second master's (if it is relatively inexpensive) to boost one's chance at being admitted to a prestigious PhD program eventually. Still fairly risky, but I can see why people go that route as long as they are not disappointed if it doesn't work out. Since you said that is not your career goal, I would pick one of the PhD offers you already have assuming you like the program when you visit.

Is the stipend amount just for the academic year? I know in my master's and PhD programs, you could make substantial money over the summer working part or full-time. Have you gone on a campus visit to the two PhD programs? Since you are leaning away from the academic track, I would go with one of the PhD programs assuming that you can get good experience in curriculum development and you don't have to take out that many loans given that the salaries in education are not particularly high. IMO, the only point to getting a second master's is if it is in a very different field than your first master's or if you want to end up in a PhD program at that school. Although, the latter is fairly risky as selective PhD programs don't tend to want their master's students. In my PhD program, every couple of years a master's student would get into the PhD program, but it wasn't common enough that I would recommend that path.

What do you plan to do with your career when you graduate? Getting a second master's in another education field is usually not worth it especially since they are close in topic and education as a field values experience over degrees. How are the offers at the two PhD programs? Are they fully funded? Do those programs have a good track record of placing graduates in careers that you would want? If not - I would stay in your job, build up more experience, and apply to more PhD programs in the future. Taking out any loans for another master's degree in education is not going to help you much - if at all.

I'll offer another perspective. I did a 3-paper format for my dissertation, but it tends to take longer than those who do the more traditional format. Part of the reason is because of what TK2 mentions, you end up having to write and rewrite your articles so that you have a very tightly written argument in each of your papers, and you throw out a lot of the work that you did that doesn't end up fitting in with this narrative. It is a more marketable product in the end assuming you are in a field that emphasizes articles, but it takes much longer. I wouldn't suggest a 3-paper format for a master's thesis! Unless you can get away with doing one publishable article or you can co-author some of the articles because trying to write three publishable articles as the solo author in a master's program sounds like a recipe for being 4 years in and still not done. Don't do that to yourself.

Since the position is with one of your advisors - you can use the knowledge of his past behavior to decide how forthcoming you should be. How has he treated students who have graduated and went on to pursue careers in industry? If it is neutral/positive, I think you can be more forthcoming about using the postdoc to figure out your ultimate direction, but emphasize that you are really excited about the position because of X, Y, and Z. If it is negative/unknown, you might want to be less forthcoming about your uncertainty, mention that you are interested in academia (which is true!), but don't try to quantify how interested, and focus on the positives of the job opportunity. Personally - one of the best things about doing a postdoc is being able to have that time and space to ensure that I do want to pursue an academic career. I was honest about being uncertain in my interviews - but I said that I was leaning towards pursuing an academic career which is still true. However, I am in a field where a good proportion of graduates pursue non-academic positions so I don't think it's too surprising to faculty when students mention this.

Sometimes postdocs are not advertised well or at all so networking can be a key component to securing one. So attending conferences, presenting your research, getting to know faculty outside of your school, etc. can be really helpful on the job market. Also use your dissertation committee and their networks to the best of your ability. They may be aware of additional opportunities/research groups/grants that may be of interest. In terms of preparation - I would just keep doing what you are doing to secure a TT position. Oh, and also have a viable plan B in case you are not successful in your first round on the job market.

During coursework - I didn't notice much of a difference between my master's and PhD. I started to feel more as an independent scholar during my last 1-1.5 years of my PhD when I was finishing my dissertation, talking about my current and future work, and was going on job interviews. A lot of how you feel (my guess) is going to depend on what you did pre-PhD. I worked for 5 years before attending my PhD program so there were definitely some frustrating times when I felt I was professionally in limbo. I also took a 2/3rd pay cut in my annual salary so that eventually got really old as my program kept on stretching out. As other posters said above, you can definitely structure your time so it is more of a 9-5 job though. I found that it made it easier to connect with friends/family who were working more traditional hours to try to keep to some kind of regular schedule each semester.