Graduate Recruiting- Do's and Don'ts.

[eco_env]

Most women applying to grad programs in STEM fields are strongly advised to watch out for potential problems with ambient sexism when visiting/interviewing at prospective programs. I'm surprised that you take umbrage at my comment, frankly, since it's such a common concern.

Maybe ecology is different; there are a lot of things I looked for in programs/advisors, but never considered sexism to be an issue, and no one else told me to look for it or an absence of it. I agree with Eigen.

[rising_star]

Maybe ecology is different; there are a lot of things I looked for in programs/advisors, but never considered sexism to be an issue, and no one else told me to look for it or an absence of it. I agree with Eigen.

This is just bizarre to me as a comment. Because no one told you to look for it or warned you about it you decided it's not an issue? FWIW, I'm not in a STEM field but am in a male-dominated discipline. Not all of the grad students (or faculty probably) are aware of the biases of particular faculty. That said, I know many grad students are warned about avoiding certain faculty because they have tended to treat their female grad students worse than their male ones. Those that get the warning are lucky since they avoid putting themselves in a bad situation. Those that don't? Well, I try not to think about it. I'd be surprised if there are ANY disciplines where sexism is not an issue. If there are, I hope someone will enlighten me and everyone else on the forum.

[isobel_a]

Just as a note, you mention STEM fields as a general thing, but in this case they really don't fit together. Not all of the STEM fields are male-dominated, with many microbiology/molecular biology/neuroscience/psychology programs being more heavily weighted towards female faculty and grad students. Also, since you're talking STEM fields, you probably won't be going thousands of dollars into anything, since the pervasive wisdom (outside of a narrow selection of MS programs) is to not go if you aren't funded.

I think it's a good idea to keep an eye out for it, but it seems a negative assumption to assume it's there in the absence of evidence to the contrary (what you seem to be suggesting).

Some biology programs are pretty even sex-ratio-wise; many are still very male-dominated in number, if not culture. There are a lot of older faculty who retain more entitled attitudes when it comes to their behavior. I've observed this is every field I've been associated with, and I started in the humanities. I've only had one negative experience, but I am going to be vigilant in avoiding a second round.

As far as money is concerned; I had a job that paid much better than your average stipend. Going into a PhD program from the "real world" represents a very tangible loss in terms of lifetime income, retirement savings, etc.

[isobel_a]

The take-home message from my post might be that you should try to match up female prospies with female mentors during the recruiting process, in an effort to make them feel welcome and as if they won't be stranded at a sausage fest for 5+ years.

[StrangeLight]

ugh.

the charge of sexism or chauvinism or misogyny or whatever is not about male to female ratios. having an equal number of men and women in a program will not eliminate the sexism that graduate students may face from certain professors. pairing a female student with a female mentor or advisor will also not bypass this.

i know of a female historian, huge in her field, who has a real problem working with female graduate students. every single one of them has left her within 3 years, either switching advisors or leaving academia altogether. this prof has often tried to have her own female advisees kicked out of the program when literally every other faculty member that has had contact with those students thinks they're outstanding students and researchers. her entire faculty knows that she has a problem with female grad students. she has never once had one finish their PhD under her, even though 1-3 women arrive every year to work with her.

i've also seen this discrimination work against men, although in much narrower circumstances. men (especially those believed to be straight) get a lot of shit when they try to work on gender in the social sciences.

i think it was umich (but i could be totally misremembering) that did a study that found that professors (male and female) wrote much weaker LORs for female job applicants than for males. they still praised the prospective applicants if they were female, but said they were "warm" and "helpful" and "good colleagues" and "kind" and whatever other words you'd use to describe a good mother, whereas male applicants' letters said they were "intelligent" and "brilliant" and "capable" and "forward-thinking," etc. the profs writing these letters probably didn't realize what they were doing, and would be ashamed once they did, but they wrote "soft" letters for their female students that gave them a distinct disadvantage on the job market. the same study found that hiring committees were often turned off by LORs that talked of someone's personality or collegiality more than their skill and potential as a researcher, teacher, and service member of a department.

all of this rambling is to say... pairing up a female applicant with a female mentor will not circumvent most of these problems, and just because you've never had someone tell you to watch out for them doesn't mean they don't exist.

[Eigen]

I can completely understand wanting to talk to some of the female students at a program, it's one of the reasons I make sure to balance the sexes every time we do recruiting in person. Being able to talk to someone who might have your same perspective/difficulties is a great thing. It's also the reason if I can I like to have grad students from different backgrounds (small vs large programs) and from different sub-specialties available.

But it seems like highlighting the fact that females aren't treated poorly in a brief graduate recruiting e-mail is taking things a bit too far in the other direction. Almost a "doth protest too much" type of thing. If you're making such overt statements about not having a problem, it would make me wonder why- have you had a problem with it in the past? Is it something you're still struggling with?

Wanting to talk to current grad students and make sure the labs you're interested have good working conditions, etc. is always wise before you select a grad school- whether you're female looking for sexism or not. Some advisors treat their male students better. Some treat their female students better. Some treat international/domestic students better. Some are just really horrible to work for no matter what your background is! It seems to me, however, that this is something that the applicant would be best to search out on their own- it's a more personal and discreet inquiry, and not something I'd be likely to advise anyone to trust based on statements or metrics given by the departmental recruiters in an e-mail, either. To reinforce this, every applicant, male or female, should check out the programs and PIs they're interested in to make sure the work conditions are such that they can comfortably work there.

As to whether numbers biased towards women imply lack of sexism- not at all. They do, however, imply that there is a decent cohort of other female students- for support, or other reasons. I would think it also indicates that the admissions committee isn't biasing their admissions too heavily towards one sex or the other.

A lot of people talk about STEM fields as male-dominated and quite sexist, but I have yet to see this at any of the institutions I've encountered, or heard even wiffs of this from any of the faculty that I've dealt with, whether at my institutions or nationally. My wife is a graduate student in Neuroscience, and has yet to experience any gender bias at any of her institutions or at national conferences, meetings, etc. That's not to say it doesn't exist, but rather to say that it's not as all-encompassing and pervasive as some people seem to suggest. Quite honestly, there's a lot of focus on gender bias in STEM fields, but it seems that many of the humanities have just as many if not more problems. I think one thing that tends to help STEM fields is objectivity of research- it's much harder to put down/cover over ideas that can be objectively shown to work really well and have long term potential.

Edited January 3, 2012 by Eigen

[ANDS!]

What kills my interest in a program? A poorly designed website. As a student with a fair amount of options, I want to be able to find information about your program without having to dig. If drumming up support for your graduate program is key, I want that information to be one of the first things my eye falls on. I had to dig for 3 to 4 minutes on Rice universities statistics website to find out when the hell the application deadline was, until I finally just signed up for an account; turns out they list the app deadline there. Just poor showing.

As has already been mentioned, get the students in there; I want to see not only how your students are doing, but how much they are enjoying their experience. There should be a mini-student life section showing students in the classroom, out of the classroom and participating in dept. run events if those happen. Yes, we're all their for ourselves and to get our own education, but no man is an island.

Same goes for the instructors. Instructor profiles clearly laying out research interests, perhaps teaching philosophies - anything to give prospective students the information they need to know that "Yes, this program is going to be a great fit for me. . ."

This is all aesthetics of course, but folks have already laid out more functional ways of improving student recruitment.

[isobel_a]

Oy...

1) I agree that male:female ratio in a department has no real bearing on individual instances of sexism, or even on the likelihood of encountering sexism in a given department. The point is well-taken, although I don't think I implied that men are the only sexists in academia; if I didn't word my comments carefully enough, mea culpa. Bullying PIs in general are a problem that many incoming grad students have already been counseled to avoid. Given some of the recent news items I've seen with PIs having *criminal charges* filed against them- well, caveat emptor.

2) I was never suggesting that you (Eigen) should literally write "we have no sexism here- honest!" in your brochure. I was, facetiously and in hyperbolic language, attempting to suggest that you attempt to make female applicants feel welcome and point them to possible friends/allies/mentors. I should have been more explicit since sarcasm doesn't translate well over the internet, it seems.

[Nitroglycerin]

I agree with ANDS!. The front line for recruiting is not the email, but the website. When I got recruitment emails, I almost always checked out the website. A poorly designed website was frustrating. For chemistry, I think one of the most crucial features is dividing faculty by sub-discipline and making sure that there are clear, concise research summaries for all of them. The research was always the first thing I checked. Everything else is important, but without the research, I'd stop looking.

On the emails, this is a nitpick-y point, but I would advise against attempting to "personalize" the emails by using names. Schools got my information from the GRE which uses my legal name, but I almost exclusively go by a nickname. It was always a little jarring to see.

Good luck!

[Roo]

A bit late to the party, but I wanted to give my input about what I don't like in some graduate program emails. I've applied to, and have been accepted/invited to interview at, a variety of schools with varying reputations. The schools with the best reputations state why I should choose their program, and give interesting facts and figures regarding tuition, stipend, research opportunities, and other statistics aimed at encouraging me to apply. Some of the other schools with slightly lesser reputations have done the same thing, and I applied to them with an equal desire to interview. Other schools, however, have followed this up with "Because our program is extremely competitive, you must apply soon", or something along those lines. Every time I see that, it turns me off. I usually think, "look buddy, you're not Stanford. I know exactly how competitive you are. Just give me the facts and let me decide". I don't mean to be arrogant, and I realize reputation shouldn't be the biggest factor in selecting a program, but something about that line really gets to me.

Also, I barely paid attention to recruiting emails to begin with. I selected my grad programs based almost exclusively on a massive perusal of web sites. A good web site should have faculty pages with updated research and publication lists. Furthermore, it should be very easy to tell which department you're looking at. I actually applied to the wrong department at a Florida school because they had a massive cluster of departments, and the online application didn't have them all on the list. Finally, the ideal faculty list should be sortable based on research topic. It's a colossal pain in the butt to click on the name of every professor, hoping that at least a couple will share your interests. It is much better when you have a set of lists, possibly with duplicate names, under headers such as "signalling in cancer" or "crystallography" or "drug design" or "HIV".

[quittingvalidator]

I would focus on how enjoyable and fun the program will be. When I used to see ads for grad school, I'd imagine myself giving up everything and not having time to do all the fun things I want to do, which is exactly what's happened now that I'm in grad school. If a grad school emphasized that it was actually fun and not stressful and going to take over one's life, I'd actually consider it.

[abc123xtc]

This is small and nitpicky, but --

I really hate it when they address me by my first name when I haven't given them the permission to do so. This also bothers me in follow-up emails with POI. I'm not sure why it irks me so mcuh.

[Eigen]

Umm.... Trying to understand, but why wouldnt they address you by your first name? I can't think of almost any correspondence I've had (except students and sales reps) where I wasn't addressed by my first name.

[fuzzylogician]

Huh. First names seem to be the baseline assumption as far as how to address students in my field, and I like it that there is no unnecessary formality.

[abc123xtc]

When I correspond with someone I don't know, I tend to address them as Ms/Mr/Dr/etc unless told otherwise. When someone addresses me by my first name without any prior contact, it seems disrespectful because they think they can use my first name solely because I am a student or I'm younger than them. It also feels really personal, and I don't always like that -- but this is all just my personal preference.

[whoneedsfreetime]

I completely agree with ANDS that the website is a crucial recruiting tool. The website (except for the recommendations of my undergraduate advisors) is my first real chance to evaluate your program. I want to be able to find several things very easily:

1. The application deadline! - If I cannot find the application deadline clearly listed on your site it is very, very frustrating. For one school which I was considering, I was never able to find the deadline listed anywhere on the department's website. Obviously, I can call the admissions department or graduate coordinator, but I should not have to. List the application deadline in bold, in red, and/or multiple times. I have friends who completely axed programs from their lists because they felt this was sloppy and spoke to the experiences they might have if they attended those programs. It is also appreciated when a program lists the projected offer/rejection notification time frame (even if you can only give what these dates have been historically), whether the program gives interviews and whether they host on-campus recruit weekends.

2. Professor profiles - These should be fairly detailed and include their current research interests, a list of representative publications, where they received their degree, who they are advising and (in the case of departments which assign students to an advisor before entering the program) if that professor is taking anymore students that year.

3. The department should generally have a good description of the program's strengths.

4. A list with links for any departments, institutions or working groups to which the program in question has strong ties.

5. Financial aid/fellowships/assistantships info - This should be clearly explained. If you offer full funding to your applicants/most of your applicants then tell me. Flat out. If you do not offer substantial funding, tell me flat out. If you don't offer good funding I am going to find out anyway if you accept me. At least knowing the situation would allow me to plan ahead, and look into outside funding.

6. Graduate student placements

Other things that are not necessary, but which are bonuses to include:

1. The normal incoming class size, how many new students you accept every year or are expecting to accept that year.

2. Good grad student profiles including: their research interests, who their advisor is, where they got their prior degrees.

[abc123xtc]

I had one school that made it impossible to find the online application anywhere -- however, it was easy to find the link to print out a paper copy of the application. I mailed them a physical copy of my application, only to have them send it back and say that they only accept online applications. I had to call their office for the URL of the actual application. In retrospect, I should not have applied there. If you want people to apply to your university, make it easy to find the online application. This shouldn't be something you have to clearly outline for someone....