My dad is a famous professor. (How) can I use this to my advantage for getting into grad school?

[ORhopeful88]

I'm not looking to go into exactly the area that he researches, but I'm interested in similar enough areas that he has many colleagues and friends in departments I am interested in applying to. I have met many of these people throughout my life and many more since I have started considering grad school. They are all willing to offer advice, which is very useful, but I am not sure that I am currently taking full advantage of these contacts. I believe that I would be able to eventually get into a grad school I like without my dad's help, but it seems like it would be a waste not to use his friends and colleagues to my advantage if it can help me get into an even better program. What would you do if you were in my situation?

[explorer-c]

How can you you use that to your advantage? The answer is simple. Ask him how. He surely knows better about this process than the average applicants here.

[ORhopeful88]

How can you you use that to your advantage? The answer is simple. Ask him how. He surely knows better about this process than the average applicants here.

Well, the thing is, he's not really the type to use his position to his advantage. I think he maybe doesn't realize the extent of his influence, or at least is very humble about it. So far, he's introduced me to some of his colleagues, who have all been very friendly to me, but I'm not sure this will make much of a difference when I end up applying.

I thought maybe people here would have some ideas of things he could do that neither of us had thought of. Thanks for the post, though. Maybe I will talk to him more directly about this...

[UnlikelyGrad]

I'm not looking to go into exactly the area that he researches, but I'm interested in similar enough areas that he has many colleagues and friends in departments I am interested in applying to. I have met many of these people throughout my life and many more since I have started considering grad school. They are all willing to offer advice, which is very useful, but I am not sure that I am currently taking full advantage of these contacts. I believe that I would be able to eventually get into a grad school I like without my dad's help, but it seems like it would be a waste not to use his friends and colleagues to my advantage if it can help me get into an even better program. What would you do if you were in my situation?

My dad is not a famous professor, but he's done a lot of collaborative work with a guy who is one of the Founding Fathers of his subfield. My oldest sister, on the other hand, is pretty darn famous in her field.

And though I have to admit that my eventual admission to a top-10 university (which I later turned down) may have been partially based on name dropping (though the prof asked first! really!), the best thing I did was to ask both my dad and my sister: "What should I do to make myself more attractive to adcomms?"

Their answers were not what I expected. For example, I was pretty darn pleased about my 800Q score on the GRE. But Chrissy was relatively blasé about it. "90% of the applicants I get have a 800Q," she said. "But your verbal score? That makes me raise my eyebrows. I almost never see applicants with a verbal score like that." (She's in engineering.)

Anyway...what I recommend is to do what you said you are already doing, namely to ask your dad, AND his friends, what they think you should do to get into top schools. You might even want to show them drafts of your SoP for their input. This will have two effects:

(1) They will give you some amazing advice.

(2) Your dad's friends (maybe your dad too, but probably not) will gossip with their friends..."Did you hear that Dr. X's son is applying for grad school?" Never underestimate the power of academic gossip. You will not see direct results from this, but it will have more impact than you possibly know. *Especially* if you send them your SoP so they have a good idea of what your research focus is.

You do not want to conspicuously name drop. Ever. You have to at least *pretend* you're trying to get in on your own merits.

[DezB88]

Their answers were not what I expected. For example, I was pretty darn pleased about my 800Q score on the GRE. But Chrissy was relatively blasé about it. "90% of the applicants I get have a 800Q," she said. "But your verbal score? That makes me raise my eyebrows. I almost never see applicants with a verbal score like that." (She's in engineering.)

Well, GRE verbal is a non-issue for all top schools. (of course you should still have more than 400, this is U Penn requirement btw)

The quantitative part is too easy and the verbal part is basically a joke, designed for memorizers (well, good for them)

When I did the test, I got through it as quickly as possible as I didn't want it to cause me fatigue and make me screw up on the more important quantitative part coming after it.

You can check a research done by UT Austin

http://www.utexas.edu/academic/mec/publication/pdf/fulltext/TOEFL Report.pdf

They found that there is low correlation in GRE verbal and TOEFL score

Asian applicants (no racism intended - I am Asian myself) while having lower TOEFL score did way better in GRE verbal.

This just confirms that the test basically tests how much vocabulary you have memorized and how accustomed you are with quick reading.

It has little to do with language proficiency

Many people in admission committee have never taken a sample of the test to see what it is. Ask your sister if she has actually taken a sample test.

Once they did, they will realize how useless it is.

[UnlikelyGrad]

Well, GRE verbal is a non-issue for all top schools. (of course you should still have more than 400, this is U Penn requirement btw)

Ummm, hello? Did you miss the part about my sister being a famous professor in her field? She's in a top-5 school in her field of engineering, in a very hot sub-field. In her department there's no real adcomm...the apps are basically circulated amongst all of the profs with whom the applicant's research interests match, and if one of them is willing to take on the student (and fund them), that student is admitted.

Ask your sister if she has actually taken a sample test.

She didn't take a sample: she took the test. Most faculty who are under the age of 50 have had to take the GRE to get into grad school themselves. My sister got an 800 V and 800 Q. She may have also gotten an 800 on the analytical section (she took it back before the institution of the AW section, which she says is useless); if not, she was certainly in the 90+ percentile. As a grad student she was also a both an NSF Fellow and, later, a Hertz Fellow. I grew up in the shadow of brilliance, and I know it when I see it.

I always find it amusing when people put down tests as "useless"--they're usually the people who either couldn't score well on a test to save their lives, or are just too lazy to put in the work. People say "it's just a bunch of memorization" and "anyone could ace it" but let's face it, it doesn't happen without a heck of a lot of preparation. Guess what? Professors want to see students who aren't a bunch of slackers. So a high verbal score does mean something after all.

(Comrade PhysioProf of the blogosphere also told me at one point that he likes to see science grads with high verbal scores--so it isn't just a case of my sister being unusual or something.)

[balderdash]

What would you do if you were in my situation?

I'm not passing judgement on you, but I'd want to get in on my own merits - I wouldn't make the connection known to the schools. I wouldn't "use it to my advantage."

Edited February 9, 2011 by balderdash

[pepsi]

"90% of the applicants I get have a 800Q," she said. "But your verbal score? That makes me raise my eyebrows. I almost never see applicants with a verbal score like that." (She's in engineering.)

just curious, what constitutes a eyebrow raising verbal score?

i agree that having a killer verbal score would make one stand out, if not just for the fact that it means the applicant put a lot of effort into studying.

i think dallas is just trying to say that it's not a dealbreaker to have an average verbal score if you are competitive in the other criteria. this seems to be especially true in computer science, where international students make up a large percentage of the application pool

[DezB88]

Ummm, hello? Did you miss the part about my sister being a famous professor in her field? She's in a top-5 school in her field of engineering, in a very hot sub-field. In her department there's no real adcomm...the apps are basically circulated amongst all of the profs with whom the applicant's research interests match, and if one of them is willing to take on the student (and fund them), that student is admitted.

She didn't take a sample: she took the test. Most faculty who are under the age of 50 have had to take the GRE to get into grad school themselves. My sister got an 800 V and 800 Q. She may have also gotten an 800 on the analytical section (she took it back before the institution of the AW section, which she says is useless); if not, she was certainly in the 90+ percentile. As a grad student she was also a both an NSF Fellow and, later, a Hertz Fellow. I grew up in the shadow of brilliance, and I know it when I see it.

I always find it amusing when people put down tests as "useless"--they're usually the people who either couldn't score well on a test to save their lives, or are just too lazy to put in the work. People say "it's just a bunch of memorization" and "anyone could ace it" but let's face it, it doesn't happen without a heck of a lot of preparation. Guess what? Professors want to see students who aren't a bunch of slackers. So a high verbal score does mean something after all.

(Comrade PhysioProf of the blogosphere also told me at one point that he likes to see science grads with high verbal scores--so it isn't just a case of my sister being unusual or something.)

I didn't miss the part that your sister is famous.

It's because you said so that I assumed (incorrectly) she's old enough to have not taken the GRE test.

Anyway, points made, let's not make this into a heated argument here

Cheer..

[UnlikelyGrad]

I didn't miss the part that your sister is famous.

It's because you said so that I assumed (incorrectly) she's old enough to have not taken the GRE test.

Anyway, points made, let's not make this into a heated argument here

Cheer..

Well, how famous is famous? She's no Albert Einstein. She's no Harold Urey or Richard Feynman. But she puts out papers that get 100 cites/year (I checked once, for fun) and have staying power; people keep citing them year after year...and she's been called in to testify before Congress regarding stuff in her field on a couple of different occasions...that's famous enough for me. :-) If you are in her sub-field, you will know her name.

I don't know how long the GRE has been around, but I know my husband took it in 1991, 20 years ago, and it wasn't new then, at all. So I think you'd be surprised at how many profs have actually taken the GRE themselves. Which is not to say that the test hasn't changed then--I think it was just a couple of years later that they switched to the computer adaptive test. And the AW section is relatively new, less than 10 years old. They used to have an analytical/logical reasoning test like the one on the LSAT. So the odds that the profs have taken the AW test is probably pretty slim unless they're brand new faculty.

I'm trying to remember what else she told me that will be of interest to the OP. A lot of the no-nos she told me about were so obvious they were only good for a laugh. Like only get recommenders who know your academic potential...she's read LoRs from football coaches and (I kid you not) dorm RAs! (Needless to say we had some very amusing conversations on this topic.)

The best advice she had for me was to visit each school I was accepted to and listen to my gut reaction. For some reason that's stuck with me over the years, whereas most of the admissions advice has flown out of the window.

[Eigen]

In STEM fields, high verbal scores aren't "required"... But they definitely help.

I've had people on adcomms at my current school and at others say that it usually makes an app stand out- you see lots of 750+ (and 800) Q scores, but in STEM you also see a lot of sub-500 V scores. So any of the high percentiles (95% and up) on verbal certainly separate you from the pack.

And as much time as they expect you to spend writing, and as much of academic writing is using a large and impressive vocabulary to sell grants and papers to publishers and funding agencies... It's a nice cherry on the top of an otherwise solid application.

An 800 Q on the other hand, most really seem like they could care less about.