Do Adcoms 'assign' incoming students to faculty members?

[poppypascal]

Hey all, I was wondering if anyone here had any insight on how admissions committees work w/r/t assigning accepted students to individual faculty members. 

First question I have is whether most people name a POI or several in their applications. I didn't, partly because it seemed risky to tie my fate to the choice of a single professor if others in the department I might have overlooked liked my application. What is the general opinion on this? Also, did you contact professors before applying? I didn't, also because it seemed more risky than the potential benefits: risk irritating a professor for the small chance he'd see my name on the application and fondly remember exchanging a couple of emails with me.

Second question: in a situation where no POI is named in the application, do the committees still 'unofficially' associate students with advisors based on their interests? Do acceptance decisions generally depend on having a member of faculty being really taken with your application, or do they accept students on a more general 'high ability' standard where everyone agrees the student is good without anyone expressly saying they want to work with them?

Thanks for any info and good luck getting through the next few weeks!

[apophantic]

I didn't email any POIs, but I've heard it is a good idea.

I also wonder about whether the applicant is chosen on majority or whether a strong liking from one faculty member (or a couple) is enough. My guess is that it depends. I bet they generally go for applicants widely agreed upon as deserving, but if a faculty member feels particularly strong about an applicant, and the member is the person who likely would end up being their advisor, then I bet that could do it too. 

[Glasperlenspieler]

In philosophy (unlike in history or in many of the sciences and social sciences), you are generally admitted to the program and not to work with a particular faculty member. Often, you won't even have an official advisor (aside from the DGS) until the second year or later. That being said, in terms of admissions, they will certainly take into account the compatibility of your research interests and those of the professors in the departments. If you want to work on Hume and there's one Hume scholar in the department, they will probably expect that you will end up working with her, even if you don't mention her name in your application. If it turns out this professor already has 3 advisees and doesn't feel she can take on any more, they may decide not to admit anyone whose primary focus is Hume (that's not to say that every department would operate this way, but it's certainly a possibility). 

In other cases, especially if your interests are more broad, they might admit you (assuming they like your app) but with no expectation that you'll end up working with any particular professor. I don't think it's necessary to name drop. If your interests are clearly articulated, it should be pretty clear which professors are good fits. If it turns out that nobody matches with your research interests, you probably won't get admitted. Name dropping can be risky. If you mischaracterize someone's research, name someone who is leaving the department, or fail to name someone who would be a good match, that may look poorly. On the other hand, if you have a specific connection to someone's work and can speak intelligently about how it has influenced your philosophical trajectory, that's probably worth mentioning. 

1 hour ago, apophantic said:

I also wonder about whether the applicant is chosen on majority or whether a strong liking from one faculty member (or a couple) is enough. My guess is that it depends. I bet they generally go for applicants widely agreed upon as deserving, but if a faculty member feels particularly strong about an applicant, and the member is the person who likely would end up being their advisor, then I bet that could do it too. 

I know for a fact that at one of the places I was admitted, there was a faculty member who was very interested in my application and pushed for me (and helpfully, that professor was on the admissions committee). Now, from talking with people, it sounds like my application was received pretty favorably by the committee as a whole at the program, so I may have been admitted even if this hadn't been the case. But if someone on the committee sees your app and decide they want to work with you and go to the trouble of convincing everyone else, that will definitely help your odds. 

[maxhgns]

2 hours ago, poppypascal said:

First question I have is whether most people name a POI or several in their applications. I didn't, partly because it seemed risky to tie my fate to the choice of a single professor if others in the department I might have overlooked liked my application. What is the general opinion on this? Also, did you contact professors before applying? I didn't, also because it seemed more risky than the potential benefits: risk irritating a professor for the small chance he'd see my name on the application and fondly remember exchanging a couple of emails with me.

I did, because I already had a pretty detailed proposal for the research I wanted to pursue (as a result of also applying to the UK). But I also figured that it was part and parcel of showing how I would fit into the department's life. I ended up working with one of the people I mentioned, and only taking a few classes with the others.

As for whether to do it... I think you should, if you can do so genuinely enough. But doing it poorly (e.g. just listing people) is worse than not doing it at all (which is sort of the neutral default).

I did actually contact the person who became my supervisor beforehand. I wanted to get a sense of what the department was like, but also whether my proposed project was of interest, and so on. It was a little weird and awkward, but it was fine. I don't know that it directly helped my application at all, but it did help me to focus my statement a little better. But I guess you can't entirely discount the mere exposure effect!  For UK applications, however, it's expected that you'll clear your project with the supervisor before you apply.

2 hours ago, poppypascal said:

Second question: in a situation where no POI is named in the application, do the committees still 'unofficially' associate students with advisors based on their interests? Do acceptance decisions generally depend on having a member of faculty being really taken with your application, or do they accept students on a more general 'high ability' standard where everyone agrees the student is good without anyone expressly saying they want to work with them?

It depends on how the department handles admissions. At my PhD-granting institution, potential supervisors have the first look at your file, starting with the writing sample (the idea being that at least one expert reads your writing sample, before any other considerations come into it). If you identify someone, the odds are good that they'll be one of the two or three faculty members who look at your file initially. If not, then you get assigned at least one such person based on how your interests match up. They then draw up a list of the top applicants in their pools, and compare notes. The final decision depends on a number of factors, including who already has students and whether they have too many, who doesn't have any/enough students, the areas the department hopes to cultivate over the next few years, balancing the interests of the students who are admitted both with one another, and with existing cohorts, etc.

 

1 hour ago, apophantic said:

I also wonder about whether the applicant is chosen on majority or whether a strong liking from one faculty member (or a couple) is enough. My guess is that it depends. I bet they generally go for applicants widely agreed upon as deserving, but if a faculty member feels particularly strong about an applicant, and the member is the person who likely would end up being their advisor, then I bet that could do it too. 

Like I said above, it depends on the department and on the considerations that they bring to the table, but generally speaking a single faculty member won't be enough to accept or reject your application. The process begins with individuals combing through files, but ends with them conferring and coming to a decision as a group, based on the department's needs and what it can support. What a strong supporter can do, however, is make a case for particular students, for making exceptions, etc. And if they work in your areas of interest, their opinion does carry extra weight.

[dgswaim]

My understanding of the process here at Penn is that the admissions committee reads the packets for the first round of cuts, and then applications that make it past the first or second cut will then be sent to faculty members with expertise in the applicant's AOI.

[kretschmar]

@Glasperlenspieler @maxhgns @dgswaim

Thank you for continuing to return to this forum and providing such useful information, with some distance from the application process. I have benefited often from your feedback to questions like these!

[poppypascal]

Yes thanks for this, it's really informative. From what I've read here and elsewhere, I think the researching of departments and faculty interests is possibly underemphasized by the blogs etc on applying. I've read some frightening account of people with top grades, gre, etc... getting shut out, I'm sure we've all read the blogs that seem to mostly dissuade people from applying to grad school in philosophy. I think part of the problem might be people applying to the wrong places, because of rankings and the like, instead of actually finding a professor or several you could really work with.

[coffeepls]

On 2/4/2018 at 1:55 PM, poppypascal said:

Yes thanks for this, it's really informative. From what I've read here and elsewhere, I think the researching of departments and faculty interests is possibly underemphasized by the blogs etc on applying. I've read some frightening account of people with top grades, gre, etc... getting shut out, I'm sure we've all read the blogs that seem to mostly dissuade people from applying to grad school in philosophy. I think part of the problem might be people applying to the wrong places, because of rankings and the like, instead of actually finding a professor or several you could really work with.

Agreed. Some of the programs I've applied to are a little less well-known, but their faculty members (or the department as a whole) are really, really great fits for me.