Thoughts on transferring?

[browneyedgirl]

I haven't dealt with this situation personally, but I have met a handful of students this application cycle who are looking to transfer from one PhD program into another, for personal or professional reasons. this point was mentioned when discussing moving from an MA into a PhD, but I think it holds for PhD to PhD as well - you'd probably want to talk to the potentital new program for you and see if they'll accept the coursework you've already completed. I've heard that not only will some schools not grant advanced standing/let you exempt out of coursework with an MA, but won't allow it even if you were already in a PhD program elsewhere. the MA bit I understand, as most of my MA (area studies specific) courses wouldn't meet other major or minor field requirements - plus, I think most everyone I've met at the admit weekends has an MA, and it's not as 'novel' as perhaps it once was - but the idea of being almost ABD and then starting over sounds, well, unpleasant.

on a similar note, I have a friend who was accepted to begin this fall and found out her future advisor is leaving and wants to take her along to the new school. talk about transferring!

[flyingwalrus]

on a similar note, I have a friend who was accepted to begin this fall and found out her future advisor is leaving and wants to take her along to the new school. talk about transferring!

Wow! Your friend must have made quite an impression.

[browneyedgirl]

Wow! Your friend must have made quite an impression.

I think so, and I'm impressed. the problem then becomes (and I'm glad this isn't my problem) that the first school is definitely a top program, desirable location, and so on. the new one isn't really renowned and the location is not nearly as desirable. the faculty member would be the main draw for prospective students at the second school. and, of course, to complicate matters, there's a spouse in the picture. these things are never easy, are they?

one of my hosts at a visit weekend said that we were all lucky, the hard part was over. I informed her that this part is even harder for many of us!

[iheartplato]

You guys are really great

[sundaymonday]

I think about this issue much the same way that I think about the NBA. If you go to my home town, you'll find that every kid thinks that he's going to be a pro basketball player. I think it's great for kids to have dreams, but the fact of the matter is that chances are, the NBA isn't the ticket out for most of these kids. What they need to do is plan for the possibility that they won't turn pro as a basketball player. Failure to do so leaves kids with no options when they grow up. It's fine to dream to be Wade or Melo, but it would be a disaster to plan on it.

Oops! Sorry, GW, not Georgetown

Anyway, I interpreted the above essentially as "Shoot for the stars, but have a backup plan in case it doesn't work out." I didn't really seem him equating getting a TT job with a 2nd tier PhD as the same thing as going from the South Bronx to the NBA.

[iheartplato]

Oops! Sorry, GW, not Georgetown

Anyway, I interpreted the above essentially as "Shoot for the stars, but have a backup plan in case it doesn't work out." I didn't really seem him as equating getting a TT job with a 2nd tier PhD as the same thing as going from the South Bronx to the NBA.

[Peter]

I would add (though from my other comments on this forum this should come as no surprise), that prestige (which is really what landing that top-10 TT job is about) is a poor substitute for intelligence. Intelligence, in my mind, is the humble recognition that you have been gifted a functioning mind, and the application of that gift to the betterment of humanity. Being "left alone with your brilliance" is a sad excuse for that you could do with your life. Your degrees, your reading lists, your articles (I believe) should reflect your earnest desire to know and understand the world and then to take that knowledge and apply it.

If you want to study, as I do, the politics of hunger, it is not enough to publish articles in the best journals (like they'd take them anyway). You should research, and you should research extremely well, but then you should take the next step (which is the harder one) and say, "very well, I believe X and Y to be root causes of the hunger problem. Understanding the real world in which we live, how can I take real steps to respond to this reality?" This next step is the embodiment of what true intelligence is. It is what happens when a person leaves the world of the theoretical (which is much easier, honestly, to navigate) and attempts the much harder step of application of the theory. This is what deeper intelligence is, or rather, this is, I believe, the ultimate goal of intelligence. In other words, the normal activities of an academic are only part of what we should be about, and we should not believe that simply publishing some articles in journals that 10 other people will read while sitting in the office of an Ivy league school makes us anything special. No, really, your brilliant theoretical thoughts are not enough. Squander is indeed one of the greatest tragedies.

At this point it is worth checking out this site to see where Nobel prize winners were working when they won the award, i.e. what schools validated their research topics, etc. You'll notice an awful lot of not-Harvards on this list (gasp!):

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/list ... ities.html

Additionally, it is always helpful to remember that many Nobel prize winners never even attended a "prestigious" school--- Einstein got his PhD from the Univ. of Zurich, Niels Bohr from Copenhagen Univ., etc. "Prestige" is a socially-constructed concept. It works only as long as people are willing to play by the rules of the game--or perhaps only until the one cave-dweller (sorry, it's just too easy), sees the light.

[rising_star]

Thanks for the insight missingvandycandy. I am in a similar situation to iheartplato in the fact that I was accepted at a lower tier university, I already have my MA (and do not want to go back for that), but think I can move further up the ladder. I am going to accept the lower tier acceptance since it comes with funding. However, I want to move to greener pastures even if it is just up the ladder a few rungs. Does anyone suggest waiting one year? Or should one wait two years? I guess to say, what is the optimal time to try again?

Really, the only thing that I can improve would be my GRE scores and maybe a little bit on my SOP but no reason to say, head back to get another MA.

You'd definitely want to at least get the MA. You'd have to be careful not to burn any bridges since you'll need solid recommendations to complete your move. And, you may discover that moving up ain't all it's cracked up to be.