How many of you are going with your safety because you have no choice?

[princetonstyle]

I applied to five PhD programs in Ontario, and so far I've only heard back from Ryerson (where I was accepted with funding). My top choice is McMaster (which I haven't heard from, but it's doubtful I'll get in), and I'm on a waitlist at York. Ryerson was my ultimate safety, and I'm now thinking I won't get in anywhere else either and Ryerson will be my only choice.

Before I heard anything I told myself I was okay with going to Ryerson, now I'm not so sure. How many of you are going with your safety schools because you didn't get into your top choice? Is a PhD a PhD, or do you hold out till next year for the school with a "better" reputation?

[martizzle]

a phd is whatever you make of it - or so i think. for me; a phd has to be from a state/big name school because i feel they will provide me with more opportunities (grad research, job after graduating, etc). the only offer i got (today, after 7 or so rejections) is from a small HBCU. my other option would have been an ivy-league, but I'm still waiting on them, and I would be in the Masters program there, not the phd. If i get in there though, i would prob end up going with them simply because i have a goal of where i want to be in x number of years and i feel big-name schools will give me a fighting chance of getting there ASAP.

ps. i am an international student here in the us, my status just expired (i have about 1 more month before i need to start packing lol). if i dont get in this year, i dont know what my options would be back in nigeria.

if i dont have another choice, i will go to my safety/one-admit. i wont be too happy about it, but i will be happy that that school gave me a chance and that i have an opportunity. some people didnt get in this year. i met a guy here (online) who got 15/+ rejections...just bcuz its a small school/safety doesnt mean its not still a cool place to be.

you figure out what you want to do & when, & if you feel you cant do the rhyerson phd program, apply again next year. but think of what you would be doing for a year though.

other option would be, go there. little school or no. apply again next year to other schools, & transfer out when you have a better offer (by the way, we hope u actually get at least another admit this year, so u dont have to do this)

[skiergirl24]

I am in the same boat.

I got into my safeties. And I really don't WANT to go to either school.

I might stay where I am now (Miami) and teach for a year (I was offered a position---unoffically---won't sign anything til april 15---as a full time instructor) and then retake the GRE, work on my POS a LOT MORE and really figure out where the best fit for me would be!

[socnerd]

I applied to five PhD programs in Ontario, and so far I've only heard back from Ryerson (where I was accepted with funding). My top choice is McMaster (which I haven't heard from, but it's doubtful I'll get in), and I'm on a waitlist at York. Ryerson was my ultimate safety, and I'm now thinking I won't get in anywhere else either and Ryerson will be my only choice.

Before I heard anything I told myself I was okay with going to Ryerson, now I'm not so sure. How many of you are going with your safety schools because you didn't get into your top choice? Is a PhD a PhD, or do you hold out till next year for the school with a "better" reputation?

I don't mean to discourage you but I've heard some very unflattering things about Ryerson. I've heard that it's not respected at all and that people consider it somewhat a community-college-level place. This may or may not be true but I've heard it from more than one source so you might want to take into consideration if you will be able to get a job after going there. Definitely check out where their grads are now and if they were able to get jobs in the field that you want.

I'm sort of the opposite I guess, I didn't get into my first choice or anything but I got into a few schools that I know are very good and I realized I spent way too much money applying to places schools that were really no good because I thought I wouldn't get in anywhere. But it's so hard to know before you do it, it can really be a crap shoot.

[princetonstyle]

Thanks for the responses. I'm so torn right now, and just praying my other choices will pan out. I feel like this is a 4+ year endeavour and I may be completely hurting myself by spending them at a place that doesn't have the best reputation if it means I won't get any job offers when I graduate. I don't think Ryerson has been granting PhD's for that long, and if there are even many graduates from their doctoral programs...

Sigh, waiting for the others and feeling like they're going to be rejections is the worst feeling in the world

[psycholinguist]

I would caution anyone in this position against defaulting to feeling as if the safety-school is the only option for next year. Last year I had only two acceptances and I couldn't afford one of the schools, so I went with the other, figuring, well, how bad could it be? Answer: pretty bad. Because I hadn't visited the department, I hadn't realised that it was going to be a very poor match for my interests: no one was doing psycholinguistics, or music-cognition, or mental-imagery, leaving me to be assigned to research that I was dreading having to work on. Furthermore, I discovered right away that psychology was the wrong field for me in the first place, and that I really needed to be in linguistics. Overall, I ended up so disillusioned that I felt sick at the prospect of having to go back for a second semester, so I left the program. I am happier with the menial IT-job I've had since January than I was at last year's safety-school. I'm not saying that everyone should necessarily turn down safety-programs, but if you aren't excited about it, it may well be worthwhile to decline, take some time to strengthen your application, and apply again next year. If you're not sure? Visit whenever possible! Go and meet relevant people and ask questions. Then, if it sounds good, go for it! If not, don't assume that just because you were accepted it'll work out.

Also, yeah, it's true that Ryerson doesn't have a great reputation. They're hoping to change this, of course, but it's a vicious cycle: low reputation means that most of the students they get aren't exactly academic superstars, and because most of the students aren't exactly academic superstars, the perception of the institution remains negative-ish. I personally don't want to go anywhere near Ryerson; of the four or five people I've ever met who went there as undergrads, I got along with only one. The others...well, let's just say that I had a hard time respecting them.

However, it's a school, and it has a Ph.D. program, and you got in, and that's nothing to laugh at.

[ootg]

I think you probably have to think about why you are doing your grad school. If it is to get into academia, check the placement rates of graduates from the safety schools. If they get decent jobs (not teaching in DeVry or Phoenix), then I guess it is okay. Doing a PhD, and then discovering that no one in the field will take you seriously is just a waste of time. In that case, then you are better off waiting another year to get into a brand-name school.

[psycholinguist]

I apologise for the tone of my paragraph about Ryerson. In trying to think of a gentle/euphemistic way of expressing that the undergrads I knew of there were mostly not the sorts of people I would be interested in spending time with, I ended up going with something that made me sound like a total elitist jerk. Not at all my intention! Thanks to the person who tipped me off about that. I'm sorry!

[sucre-creme]

I feel the same right now... I got through my safe schools and also since these schools only take me in if a professor's gonna fund me... I have been assured I'll be provided with funding too... Though the schools I got though are not exactly top ranked schools I love the research going on there and have decided to remain with these schools till I finish a masters atleast (I don't have a masters yet but my goal is to do a PhD).... I applied to PhD programmes in these schools... but decided to go here for a semester(& transfer) or till I finish my masters.... If I like it here then I'll continue to a PhD here...

I'd say I'd rather go to a school whose research is what I've dealt with in the past and am confident I need to do this in the future than an ivy league school's research that's remotely interesting to me with unfriendly professors...

But if that's not the case you could wait an year look for the appropriate PhD programme for you get in touch with your professors and see what you can do to get into the school.... You'll have more time this way to improve your GRE subject/general scores etc etc....

Edited March 25, 2010 by sucre-creme

[The Pseudo grad student]

I'm contending with the same issues as the OP. I actually applied to lower tier schools because the combination of my low GPA and GRE. I got into one saftey that only has 10 students in the entire department and another which just made the major for next fall which is both very concerning to me. I am not excited about both but I feel like I have no other options at this point.

My question is: is it possible to go to a lower tiered/non-ranked schoo for an MS degree and get into a more reputable grad school for a PhD program?

[Postbib Yeshuist]

Though I was lucky and got bumped up from the wait list at my first choice, I was 100% prepared to turn down my safety school because (1) the financial package would have been an incredible strain and (2) because the "fit" for my project would not have been ideal. I saw it this way: I could have either spent an additional year reapplying to be sure I couldn't do better (it's rare that your second round of apps are worse than your first) or I could have spent an additional year, or two, or three, or... applying for jobs with a non-competitive PhD. Like I said, I got lucky in the end, but I had decided on the first option of taking a year. Nothing would be worse than to finish and find you're unemployable...

[Postbib Yeshuist]

My question is: is it possible to go to a lower tiered/non-ranked schoo for an MS degree and get into a more reputable grad school for a PhD program?

Let me change that question to be what I think is the critical issue: if you go to a lower-ranked school, will you be challenged in such a way that your work will mature to the point that you're competitive with others? The answer to your question is "sure." After all, you could be the next Cornell West or Edward Said. But if you're not going to shake your field to its foundations, you're going to need a program that pushes at every turn to do better. The PhD application process is brutal and ridiculously competitive (acceptance rates are almost universally under 10% at the good schools, with 3-5% being the norm). You'll be competing against 150 others for maybe 5 spots. A poor reputation from your school only sets you back and it's likely you won't have been pushed in a way that your app stands out.

Long-winded answer, but you asked a complex question

[The Pseudo grad student]

Thanks for getting at the real issue behind my question Postbib. I guess it will take some time for me to realize what I really want from grad school but your input really helps.

[Liesje]

this is a complicated issue. if your safety school is not a good fit, i would say don't go. if it is a good fit, some questions to consider:

1) do you have the resources to wait another year, and the motivation to improve your application dramatically?

2) how important to you is job placement?

i'm in english, where the job prospects are not good no matter what school you come from, and i'm open to working outside the field, at least at this point. given that academia has been the defining orientation of my entire life, it would be difficult to suddenly adopt a different standard and value system without feeling like a failure. this is simply a psychological cost of trying to fulfill my goals. but i'm prepared to defer this problem in order to make sure that i'm comfortable financially, geographically, socially, and academically, in the process giving myself the best chance to finish the phd, rather than simply pursuing the shiniest degree with the best placement prospects.

[gezzloume]

Thanks for the responses. I'm so torn right now, and just praying my other choices will pan out. I feel like this is a 4+ year endeavour and I may be completely hurting myself by spending them at a place that doesn't have the best reputation if it means I won't get any job offers when I graduate. I don't think Ryerson has been granting PhD's for that long, and if there are even many graduates from their doctoral programs...

Sigh, waiting for the others and feeling like they're going to be rejections is the worst feeling in the world

If you can, I strongly recommend that you visit the Ryerson campus to talk to some current students and/or faculty in person (outside of a meet-and-greet situation) before you accept their offer. This is not because its Ryerson university but because a friend of mine unfortunately did not take that advice and jumped into a graduate program that started fairly recently and therefore, it wasn't as developed (in terms of courses, research options) as she first anticipated.

Peace.

Edited March 26, 2010 by gezzloume