Visiting Campuses

[jaxzwolf]

I plan on making a trip to visit potential schools in about a month's time. I plan on meeting with prospective advisers and their labs, if possible, all of whom I've been in communication with for at least a few weeks. All of the schools I'm looking to visit are in fairly close proximity with one another, and I plan on largely utilizing public transportation to travel between campuses. My question is, how much time should I budget to spend at each school? I'm taking time off work, and I'll be paying for transportation and hotel costs, along with food, so ideally, the less time spent away from work-- not making money while simultaneously spending it-- the better. Will a single day be sufficient if the primary goal is to meet prospective advisers face-to-face? I'll obviously also be planning on doing campus tours and hopefully speaking with a current grad student or two. Is there any reason to spend more time at each school? What other things should I look into seeing/doing/etc. while visiting? Any tips for these types of visits or meetings with professors?

I'm really just trying to make my trip as economical and efficient as possible. It seems little overwhelming right now, particularly because there's no telling whether I'll be able to meet with certain professors on certain days. But there really isn't any way for me to schedule meetings first and plan the trip later. It would end up being a logistical nightmare.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Eigen]

Personally, I spent a full day at the shortest when I visited grad schools.

Will you have applied already when you visit? Or is this prior to any application at all?

Usually, if you schedule a visit through the department graduate coordinator, they can get you a good itinerary with most of the professors you want to visit- it's much easier than scheduling them yourself. It's a matter of course after acceptance, but most will also do it even prior to admission.

I found 2 days visiting worked much better, although (like I said) you can do it in one if you're pressed for time.

[jaxzwolf]

I'm visiting before applying. I've almost worked it out now to spend one full day at each campus and a day and a half or two days at a couple. I don't think I can afford to take enough time off work to spend two days at each campus, and travel distances between campuses are, in some cases, a half to a full day's travel apart using public transportation.

[rising_star]

In general, there's really no reason to visit schools before applying, especially not when you have to take off from work, pay for hotels and travel, etc. all out of your own pocket. Once admitted, most schools offer applicants a chance to visit and will often line up meetings, tours, dinner with grad students, etc as part of their effort to recruit you. And really, it's a lot of money on top of the application fee without really doing much to improve your chances of getting in. If you really want to meet with your potential advisors, it would be better to go to a conference that they will all be at and just schedule coffee/lunch meetings with each of them. The logistics you're encountering in trying to schedule meetings are one of the reasons that many applicants but off visits until after they get accepted. That way, you could meet 3-4 in a day. But, I digress...

If you're looking for ways to save time on your visits, I'd recommend skipping the campus tour. Those tours are designed for undergraduates so they'll do things like show you the dorms, which you probably aren't all that interested in. It might be better to just get a map and walk around or see if you can arrange a meeting with a graduate student that will show you around campus for half an hour or so.

If you really must, you could probably see the lab in the morning, have lunch with a grad student, and then perhaps see another lab in the afternoon. But that will be pushing it and not give you a lot of time to really explore and see if things are right for you. Post-acceptance visits are typically 2-3 days, which gives you time to see the city/town, tour the campus and the department, meet the current grad students, etc. You won't be able to replicate that in a one day visit.

P.S. To be perfectly candid, I have to say that I pay less attention to prospective students visiting in the fall and early spring than I do to those visiting after our department has sent out acceptance letters. In the fall/winter, those visits are about convincing people that they want to apply but, honestly, if they are already paying out of pocket to visit, then they're going to apply. In the spring, I pay more attention because I'm meeting someone that is actively trying to decide whether or not to be part of the next cohort of students and who I may be seeing around the hallways for years to come. So, don't take it personally if grad students seem too busy or distracted or whatever when you're trying to meet with them. And, I'm sure there are plenty that are nothing like me and detest my approach to it. I'm just sharing my own attitude.

[Eigen]

What Rising_Star says is quite true.

I visited one school (Vanderbilt) in the summer just before I applied, and the other two (Penn State and Tulane) in December, after I'd been accepted.

The difference in the visits was quite large- while they set everything up for me at Vanderbilt, it was out of pocket expenses. Penn State, on the other hand, flew both myself and my wife up, put us up in a hotel for 3 days, etc.

The professors were quite different as well, changing from the "you should apply here" mentality to the "I'd really like you to work in my group" mentality.

[jaxzwolf]

I understand that there's quite a bit of difference between pre- and post-acceptance visits. Last year, I applied to seven schools and was rejected across the board-- no opportunity for campus visits provided, for obvious reasons. I attended (and presented at) a national conference over the summer. I did meet a couple of the advisers with which I have an interest in working, but not all of them were able to attend. When asking professors for advice at the conference, and after contacting several of the professors into whose labs I was not accepted (to let them know about my continued interest in their work and my intent to reapply next year), their responses were all the same-- "Come visit if you have the opportunity," "Try and visit in the fall before you apply," "Come to campus and meet with prospective advisers in person." It's advice that's been reiterated by my undergraduate advisers and a lot of the reading I've done. I realize that it would be much preferable to wait until after I'm accepted and have my expenses paid and professors trying to convince me to choose their school, but that's not going to do me any good if I don't get accepted in the first place.

After scrutinizing my CV, credentials, and applications from last year, it was clear to me that really the only thing I could do to make a discernible difference in my chances of acceptance for this year is to meet with prospective advisers face-to-face to convince them that I'm worth taking on. The idea isn't so much to make sure if a school is right for me, but rather to discuss potential research opportunities with prospective advisers and give myself that little extra bit of leverage when it comes time for them to review stacks of faceless applications and try and pick who they accept. And although it will hurt for a little while, I'm willing to spend the money making the trip if that's what it takes to get me a spot in someone's lab.

[rising_star]

After scrutinizing my CV, credentials, and applications from last year, it was clear to me that really the only thing I could do to make a discernible difference in my chances of acceptance for this year is to meet with prospective advisers face-to-face to convince them that I'm worth taking on. The idea isn't so much to make sure if a school is right for me, but rather to discuss potential research opportunities with prospective advisers and give myself that little extra bit of leverage when it comes time for them to review stacks of faceless applications and try and pick who they accept. And although it will hurt for a little while, I'm willing to spend the money making the trip if that's what it takes to get me a spot in someone's lab.

I don't mean to be a jerk but, if the only thing you can change is having face-to-face visits, you may want to take another year before applying to actually change something about your credentials for graduate school, otherwise you're likely to get the same outcome. This could mean taking graduate courses in your discipline or subfield and doing well in them, working in a relevant lab and gaining additional research experience, volunteering in a related position, doing a MA, etc. I'd be hesitant about resubmitting the exact same materials but with the only change being you spent 30 minutes trying to convince that person to admit you several months before the application materials were actually read.

Have any of the PIs you're interested in told you that a visit before you resubmit will make the difference between acceptance and rejection? Because i find that visiting is something that's thrown around a lot but may not make a huge difference in the end, especially if that prof isn't on the admissions committee.

[jaxzwolf]

I don't think you're being a jerk, but I do think it's a little unfair to assume that my credentials need changing/improving without knowing anything specific about my background. I can't fault you of course, since this is a public forum and I choose not to share that type of information, but there are reasons behind my decision to visit schools-- this isn't a whim, and it's not something I would put the time, effort, and finances into doing if I didn't think it was going to help in some form.

No prospective adviser has assured me that a visit will guarantee acceptance, but seeing as how making a campus visit has been a primary (and sometimes singular) suggestion from prospective advisers for improving my chances at admission (as opposed to getting additional research experience, etc.), it's obviously well-regarded and beneficial for candidates in my field, and thus something I've decided to pursue.

I was simply looking for tips on visiting campuses and meeting with prospective advisers.