molec

Great thread. 1. Adding to the advice to talk to professors about programs and process - seek advice from junior faculty that you respect and whose work aligns with your interests, in addition to any senior/famous faculty. They'll have a better idea of what the application/job/disciplinary landscape looks like now. Not to suggest that senior faculty are out of touch, but the junior faculty will have had more recent experience with the nuts-and-bolts and the admissions and job market side of things are pretty different now than when your 60-year-old super famous advisor was in your shoes. I recall having the department chair suggest one program as a safe school because they had a larger cohort-size than a lot of others. Turns out, a lot had changed and when I got accepted there I found out that they had a cohort of 4-6 and making it, numbers-wise, one of the most competitive programs in my field at the time. I mean, it worked out, but yowza. 2. Related to that, I agree with all the comments of there-are-no-safe-schools, but not only because of fit-above-all. That's true, and there's all manner of things that can go awry in this sometimes absurd process that makes a safe school a poor bet, but the more important thing is - why do you want a safe school? Is it just a program that you think will take you? Would you want to go there? Do you think you can do strong work there? Because if the answer to those questions is "no" or even "not sure," it's not a safe school, it's an emotional death-trap. This is probably not true for all fields and certainly if the degree is geared to land a higher pay-grade job outside of academia and you just need the paper, by all means. But otherwise, especially for a PhD, it's an enormous commitment and the thing you will have to show for it is the work you're able to do. So if the safe school is somewhere you'd like to go anyway but maybe accepts more people than other programs, okay. But if it's just a school that you think you can get into because you just really think you need to start a degree? No one really needs to start a PhD. Apply to where you want to go, where you think you can do good work, and if you don't get into those places, think about it seriously and maybe apply again. But don't apply somewhere just because you think you can get in and you want a degree. That's like trading in your career for a little security the application process. While it might not feel like it, the hard part comes AFTER that. 3. I'm a big proponent of "real world experience" before grad school (PhD). Even if you think you KNOW that the academy is what you're built for. It doesn't hurt to check. Take a breather, think it through, think about whether you want a PhD because this work is the work you want to do more than any other, or because you just don't like other work. Both are valid, but it's a good thing to know going in and might save you a few really inopportune moments of crisis and self-doubt when things get tough. It'll also give you some skills that might be handy - time management skills, PEOPLE management skills. Because being a grad student can feel a lot like regression or some serious stunting in terms of people/professional skills. And a lot of academics can behave like children and a lot of programs can be very political. It can be a pretty independent sort of enterprise, which often encourages a lot of strong personalities. I won't hurt to have some good people skills going in, especially in a client-services type field where you have to make sure various levels of egos are pleased while not compromising the integrity of the work you produce.