Applying to a PhD program while already on another one

[Yan Yang]

I'm just wondering, is it harder to be admitted if I'm already being supervised by another professor? My manager (in the industry) said few professors would take a student from another professor, because it negatively impact their networking in the academia.

How serious is this negativity and is the risk on my side manageable if I wanna find a new PhD school to apply? I've heard lots of instances where transferring from one phd program to another didn't induced a bad result at all.

[microglia]

On 12/7/2020 at 3:36 PM, Yan Yang said:

I'm just wondering, is it harder to be admitted if I'm already being supervised by another professor? My manager (in the industry) said few professors would take a student from another professor, because it negatively impact their networking in the academia.

How serious is this negativity and is the risk on my side manageable if I wanna find a new PhD school to apply? I've heard lots of instances where transferring from one phd program to another didn't induced a bad result at all.

Just to clarify, you used to work in industry, you're currently in a PhD program, and you would like to transfer to another program? If so, could you elaborate on your reason for wanting to do so?

[Yan Yang]

On 12/9/2020 at 11:09 PM, microglia said:

Just to clarify, you used to work in industry, you're currently in a PhD program, and you would like to transfer to another program? If so, could you elaborate on your reason for wanting to do so?

More accurately, it's only less than a month before I start a PhD program and I have already moved to another state for this. The program hasn't officially started yet, though.

[microglia]

10 hours ago, Yan Yang said:

More accurately, it's only less than a month before I start a PhD program and I have already moved to another state for this. The program hasn't officially started yet, though.

That makes more sense! Would you mind sharing the reasons why you want to reapply to another program without having started this program yet? Depending on your reasoning and how much the program agrees with it, there may or may not be a negative impact moving forward. Without knowing the context of your thinking, I can say that it's still always best to do what makes you happy. Leaving a program, even in this circumstance, could never be as hurtful as spending 4-6 years in a program that makes you miserable.

[Yan Yang]

On 12/14/2020 at 11:42 AM, microglia said:

That makes more sense! Would you mind sharing the reasons why you want to reapply to another program without having started this program yet? Depending on your reasoning and how much the program agrees with it, there may or may not be a negative impact moving forward. Without knowing the context of your thinking, I can say that it's still always best to do what makes you happy. Leaving a program, even in this circumstance, could never be as hurtful as spending 4-6 years in a program that makes you miserable.

Sorry for the late reply! I applied only to one single school last year, and then I hurriedly moved to another city starting a job, with no time left to apply to more. After I was accepted, I posted my test scores, GPA, and what recommendation letters I can have to a consultant's forum. It's a paid service and I got the answer that I can try applying CS schools ranking 50-100 at least, and maybe challenging those within 50. My offer is from a school with its computer science ranking 130+ and comprehensive ranking 200+. I still accepted the offer, thinking it's not good to be obsessive in rankings. I wanted to rely more on myself than the school resources.

However, later I heard more bad news, for example, many people said it would be almost impossible to get a good offer in academia if I do my PhD in this ranking. It seems it's not even because people who end up in lower ranked schools are all incapable of good research. It's more influenced by networking, etc. I have been hesitating since then, thinking I might be luckier than others sometimes, and doubting it's a good idea to get stuck in this school for the rest of the time.

I have already started my first semester one months ago. I feel like there're more reasons than networking. The problem also lies in that I'm not working alone. I had to stay and listen when we spend hours and hours in meetings on things not helpful. I cannot push too hard when my cooperating senior PhD had fundamental misunderstandings on the web framework architecture, but kept switching focus to things like whether I included accessibility feature (it was originally stated as only for a temporal internal demo, and nobody's visually disabled) -- he rejected all my submissions while my supervisor has been complaining I didn't contribute to the team. My supervisor also starts showing attitudes when I ask too many questions, even good questions. He believes digging too deep won't help with a "quick publication" within a semester, saying he won't fund me next semester if I cannot publish. I usually don't get any explain on what instead is useful for "quick publication", either.

When I was in master's school, some PhD students wasn't able to have any publications by the end of the first whole year. They were still supported. I found that they got good amount of citations when they approach the end of their PhD program. I found that, in my master school, professors emphasize quality and efficiency. My supervisor here only wants to see immediate result. Unlike my master supervisor who was able to suggest books and other learning resources, correct the wrong way of doing things, he often seems unable to provide proper mentorship, but gets ridiculing and impatient on how to get the result. I'm not saying he has ill intension. He is probably just frustrated himself.

I have to admit that I've been trying to overcome my prejudice and be objective in commenting my PhD school. I cannot promise there's no influence of this prejudice at all. I just tried my best. Now I'm waiting for a decision from Tufts University. I'm not very optimistic, because my undergraduate GPA is at the boundary (just a bit lower than 3.0), and Tufts didn't ask for GRE score which is my strength. The web forum consultant also said his suggestion was based on his supposition that my original undergraduate overall score is higher than 80/100.