ZeChocMoose

While I understand this is a frustrating process, I think everyone needs to step away from their mindset for a moment and realize their misplaced anger. Frankly, many of you are being very immature. Internet temper tantrums aren't becoming and the energy could be better spent. Ad Coms are people too. They have families, classes, grad students, research and conferences. It's a lot of work. The wait is long and hard on all of us, but I'm sure reading 34 "I first realized I wanted to be (profession) when I was 8 years old" sops is just as painful.

I don't necessarily think a long time frame is evidence of inefficiency or unprofessional behavior on the part of the programs. Indeed, think of all the time it takes to read letters, SOPs, writing samples, and supplementary materials. Now multiply that by anywhere between 50-450 applications. Now realize that almost all of these applications have been read by several adcomm members, and many have been read by all of them. Now include the amount of time they go through to argue about who to admit and prioritizing the waitlist. Now include the time they put in to hashing out financial offers. Also, they ALL have other jobs. Two months sounds fairly reasonable to me.

Keep in mind also that the Grad Cafe members are self-selected among applicants as 1) most anxious, and 2) most driven. Thus it is not surprising that some of them are hearing back in January, because those folks happen to have very impressive hit-it-out-of-the-ballpark profiles (a side benefit to being both driven and anxious - worrying leads to great revisions). Most of us, however, are good, but about the same amount of good as the competition. It is reasonable that it takes some time to evaluate us.

However, I understand that anger is one of the emotions that comes out of anxious waiting. If the application process is really corrupt in some way, then, sure, anger is a logical response. But these programs are investing money and years into students, so it isn't too much to expect them to be measured about it.

UC Berkeley is many things. Prestigious is one of them. Under funded is another. Generally speaking you have an ultra prestigious group of schools like Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, and a few others. Right below that you have slightly less prestigious schools like UC Berkeley, U of Michigan, UCLA etc. These are still very prestigious schools, and in may areas academically superior to places like Harvard. It mostly boils down to snob appeal, history, and endowment.

Make sure to ask your program the true attrition rate for PhD student. It could be at or above 60% in many hard science programs at UCB.

I'm a new applicant so this is my first go-around. I just want to say though - you guys are amazing. Honestly. The persistence, courage, and drive that it must take to go through this agonizing process TWICE is incredible, and I am so impressed! I really hope that round 2 really brings you all what you want - you deserve it!

I agree with this posting. I received two rejections before getting my first acceptance...AND I GOT ACCEPTED BY THE TOP SCHOOL IN MY FIELD (according to US News and World Report), so go figure...LOL....I'm still waiting to hear back from 3 other schools, and I wouldn't feel bad if they say "NO," because the TOP SCHOOL said a BIG. FAT. YESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!! LOL :-)

Nah, Michigan is outside both the traditional "tornado alley" and the secondary major tornado zone in the Ohio Valley known colloquially as "Hoosier Alley", named for the relative frequency of violent, long-tracked tornadoes in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, etc. given the relatively lower number of tornadoes they have to the traditional tornado alley. Michigan has only had two F5 tornadoes in its history, and none since 1956.

http://www.tornadohi...m/custom/289287 <-- There's a map of every tornado that's occurred in Michigan since formal record-keeping started in 1950.

Yeah, in another life, I might be applying to meteorology grad school instead of history grad school. This is relevant to me too, since I'll also likely be moving to Michigan in the fall.

I don't think there's any problem in letting schools know about other offers you have received. In fact, at the last program I visited, I was asked about offers I had received from other programs. When I responded that I had another acceptance with undetermined funding, I was explicitly asked to let them know when I find out what the other school decides to offer me, and they said they can reconsider their funding offer (which is already 5 years of full support) based on that. That said, however, I would not, under any circumstances, tell a school about another program's offer if that school has not already accepted you--that just seems tacky and presumptuous.

I have a 2-day interview tomorrow. I'm freaking out! I'm doing what I know helps me "chill out" (reading about the school, going to the gym, breathing, etc.). Any tips for the actual interview?

That is Sylvester, the cutest rabbit EVER.

and my turtle laid eggs, and they just hatched, so obsessing over baby turtles has been a pretty good way to get my mind off of checking my email a million times a day:

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Ollie!

This is my furry companion, Laela! She's been my lap bunny through the GRE, applications, and now hearing back from programs. She was the first one to make me feel better when I was wait listed at my top choice program - I don't know what I'd do without her

Those of you who are offended by curt replies need to develop some thicker skin of you are going to be successful graduate students. Most faculty members are -extremely- busy people and they are dealing with a lot of these types of emails right now. If they sat down and wrote a well thought out reply to everyone that has emailed them wanting to work for them, that would probably be an entire day or more wasted on that process.

Plus, people who are emailing professors right now are indeed being a tad bit annoying. It's totally fine to email a professor to verify that they are a good research fit before applying to the school, but at this point you've already applied and if you are an appropriate fit your application will be reviewed. Emailing potential advisers right now is superfluous and irritating.

I'm a couple hours south of you (finishing up my MA at St. Bonaventure). Three of the schools on your list (UFlorida, UNLV, and Rutgers) are on my list as well. I sincerely hope that we both wind up with acceptances to the same program, because I will make sure that you never live down the fact that you had a mini-mid-life crisis at the ripe old age of 24.

Signed,

Your 31 year old fellow applicant

I understand how you feel. I remember when I turned 24 - I was stuck in the business world at an entry-level job and hating it. It was supposed to be the start of the rest of my life and I truly knew I was in the wrong place. It took a lot of courage for me to quit my job and re-enter academia.

I also remember what it was like to be 24 - nearing the mid-20s mark - and feeling all this pressure to be doing something with yourself. So I wasn't offended by your "I'm 24 already I should just give up" comment at all. My parents were completely disappointed when I announced I was leaving my job and going back to school because they thought I was too old to be a student. I don't know if you're getting pressure from the outside, but usually that's the cause of so much mental anxiety.

Now I'm 28 and in the middle of a Master's program. It took over a year for my family to come to grips with the fact that this is what I want to do with my life (be an academic). I think they still are holding out hope that Ill "do something with myself" though. And you know, it took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that it's okay to be in academia, and not only is it ok, it's awesome. And if I'm not accepted to a Ph.D program this year I'll most likely apply for a second Master's in a different but related field, which means Ill be 31 or older when I finally enter a Ph.D program.

You just have to remember that a Ph.D is the top, the climax. Why rush into it at 24? It'll be awesome if you're accepted this year, but if not, don't think it's the end. Being in academia is an experience; it's about learning, researching, teaching, discovering. Enjoy it while you're in it, and don't rush it. It took me a while to realize this, but now that I have, I'm appreciating it that much more. Everything has its time.

My knee-jerk reaction is to not sympathize with someone who bemoans the fact that they will be, gasp, thirty by the time they finish their graduate degree.

Perhaps it is time for you to "move on" with your life. If you think that not hitting a certain goal by a certain age is the only way to succeed, then I agree that you lack the pragmatism, flexibility, and adaptability to succeed as an academic. Best of luck.

Here's my Lucifer and Sarge <3

Your comments are a bit odd philosophy chic. It is not so much that PhD graduates will increase the "prestige" of the institution that they attend, but institutions understand in order to attract and retain great PhD students then they need to provide them with basic essentials. These basics are tuition remission, a livable stipend, medical coverage, and solid training and development for the field that the students want to enter. It is a symbiotic relationship between the student and the program. Your comments make it seem like the student is the only one benefiting from their education. I disagree-- as the student, the institution, the field, and the community-at-large benefits from providing education to its citizens.



Typically PhD students do not view their degrees as a "necessary evil" to earn their future income. It's the process that is important to them and this process allows them to secure a job in academia. Your comments make it sound like a PhD is just a hurdle that you need to accomplish before your "real" career begins.

I also have to disagree with your comment that medical, law, and master's students are not concerned with the cost of their degree. I think they are concerned especially in fields where the average income is declining or jobs are difficult to find for recent graduates. Personally, I think we need to do a better job at subsidizing the cost of this education as well as it is important to our community to have skilled doctors, lawyers, and industry members from all walks of life.

That is pretty much how I feel YA_RLY. I was accepted to my top choice last week and I am itching to accept, announce my decision to the world, and start planning to move to a different area of the country. I do think that the posters above are right. Although it's annoying it is probably best to just wait for the other decisions even though you don't think it will change anything. I do think you can accept after the campus visit which is what I plan to do and by the visit I will have the decisions on my remaining two apps. So sit tight and distract yourself!

This is not how you want to do it.

You don't want to know that there exist people who attended this program and ended up with shiny jobs. Well, you do, but that's not the main concern here. You want to know how most people are doing, because unless you have a very good reason to believe that you are unusual, you should never assume that you will be the great shining exception of the department. If the top 5% of the recent graduates end up with absolutely amazing jobs, the next 15% end up with decent jobs, the next 20% end up wtih crappy jobs, and the remaining 60% end up with no job, you probably don't want to attend that program, no matter how fantastic the jobs of that top 5% are.

So, what you want to know are things like:

- What percentage of graduates have jobs lined up upon graduation?
- What percentage of those jobs are in academia? (Even if you don't want to go into academia, this can give you an idea of where the department's focus is.)
- What percentage of graduates have jobs within a year of graduation?
- What percentage of graduates end up in which sectors, industries, or companies?

If all those check out, then you can look at the shiny jobs that the stars get (it might also be worth it to find out what their credentials were when they got those jobs, so that you have something to aim for). But any department that's just giving you anecdotes of the greatest recent success stories is misleading you (whether intentionally or not).

I am an older applicant, and my SO is established in his career here. We actually both own homes here. Our plan is that I will go away to school and he will stay here. I did not in any way limit my application sphere because of him. If we make it we make it, and if we don't we don't.

I know this wasn't your question, but on the topic of relationships and graduate schools... I think that if significant others are unwilling to make sacrifices for each other (equally, it must be balanced) then you should choose school over your SO. It shouldn't have to come down to that. For instance, I met my SO in undergrad. Upon graduating he applied to MFA programs and we moved to another state while I got a job for the three years he did his degree. Now he's graduating and it's my turn- I'm going to go to an MA program in the fall and he'll move with me and take two years off. Then we'll either apply for PhD programs together, or jobs together. It's tough, but we're making compromises for each other. If only one person were making compromises, that would be trouble.

ME TOO! I've unsubscribed to everything. I'm not sure which influenced it more, being sad it wasn't grad school stuff or mad that it's all Valentine's day stuff. Ugggghhhhh.

I don't ever remember dreaming about grad school applications last year, and I hadn't this year, until last night. It was a weird mix of Grad Cafe and acceptances, rejections, where the "vote this post up or down" button at the bottom of each post on the forum was actually a admit/reject button, where the plus sign was an acceptance and the minus a rejection. I was watching the screen in real time and it said I'd received three acceptances.

This afternoon I received a rejection letter from one of those three schools. Crap-- I hope my dreams aren't some kind of backward prescient, where I was actually foreseeing my rejections. My thinking overall, though? I need to spend less time on Grad Cafe.

Ultimately, what you're concerned about is job placement (and how your school's reputation will affect that). I think you're right to be concerned, because there's a correlation between program reputation and job placement.

But you don't just care about a general correlation. You care about the specific programs on your list, right?

So go look at the placement records for the programs on your list. The NRC collects this data for research-based doctoral programs (though their data is four years out of date), which you can see for free online, and programs themselves will often have it available. You want to know what percentage of a program's grads have a job lined up when they graduate, and, depending on your career ambitions, what percentage have an academic job lined up. You probably also want to know the quality of the jobs in both categories. While it's true that more prestigious programs tend to have better placement rates, if you're considering a mid-rank program that is a good research fit for you and has a very strong placement rate...clearly they're doing something right.

Different advisors within a department also sometimes have different placement rates. Awesome Dr. Connected's advisees might nearly all end up in top postdocs, tenure-track positions, or highly prestigious industry jobs, while most of her departmental colleague Dr. Blah's advisees might not even have any good prospects by the time they finish.

One thing NOT to do is to simply accept the program's glowing reports of their best three success stories of the last decade in place of numbers about how the average graduate fares. Most programs, even if they're not very good and have poor placement rates, will have the occasional superstar who has his or her pick of the best jobs. You can't assume that that will be you. You want to know how placement works out for the students who DON'T walk on water.

Depending on what, exactly, you want to do, there might be other factors you care about. If you know that you want to teach at a community college or small liberal arts college, you want a program that not only has a good placement record but turns out good teachers. If you want to work in another country, as several people have said on this thread, straight-up reputation can matter a lot.

I tend to place more emphasis on prestige/reputation than I think a lot of applicants on boards like this do, but it's because those are generally linked with good resources and outcomes, not because it's nice to have random people ooh and aah when you tell them where you went to school. They're a proxy for employability. But if you can get the actual numbers on employability, that's more useful information than the proxy.

Meh. I don't think what she did was that terrible. Faculty are really busy and have a lot of demands on their time. I don't know what time of year this was but it is quite possible she had other priorities. I agree that you should wait to pass judgment until you meet her in person and get to talk to her advisees.