Best of luck with applications!

[FertMigMort]

I've been posting here under one name or another in the past, but now that I'm a senior student, my posting will have to come to an end. I've been selected to be search committee for students this year and I want to follow the rules as strictly as possible, which means no posting on Grad Cafe.

A friendly reminder to those applying this round:

• Getting in can be capricious. Try not to take it personally.
  
• Apply to schools that are a good fit for your interests.
  
• Apply to programs with multiple potential faculty members you can work with.
  

I wish everyone the best of luck and look forward to reading applications this year!

[jacib]

Rules allowing, maybe you'll consider posting in the spring or next fall with what you've learned from your experience!

Oy, good luck to you reading all those applications and writing samples. I envy the institutional knowledge you'll gain, I don't envy the extra work you're taking on.

[FertMigMort]

I was awarded a prestigious full scholarship from a private foundation at my undergraduate institution and served on their panels to grant new scholarships twice. I feel lucky to have that experience, because I am daunted by reading all of these apps! Especially because I don't want to get it wrong or not admit someone that would be a great fit for our program.

I'll definitely consider posting before the next round to give some insight. I'm interested to see how much things like GRE scores, GPAs, etc. are weighted when granting admission. I know that GRE scores are used to dole out fellowships, but nothing else is confirmed.

Again, best of luck to everyone! If by some chance you are applying to my mystery school, I promise I will read your app carefully and give it my full consideration.

[FertMigMort]

Hey everyone, I'm done with my service on the adcomm. I'll be typing up a longer post about that experience and tips for picking schools for anyone that didn't get in this round sometime in late February.

One more time...

PLEASE! Remember that you can be identified by what you post online. I deliberately avoided coming onto GradCafe while I was looking at applications, but I see many familiar names now that I'm back. If you do not want to be identified, use caution when posting. Don't put your location, use your real name, etc. Grad recruitment committees frequently troll this board for information (based on my experience and the experience of other senior students I know) without posting or signing in.

I can't wait to meet the people I helped select during my service on the adcomm. Best of luck to all of you who applied!

[jacib]

Welcome back!

[dawgle]

Hey everyone, I'm done with my service on the adcomm. I'll be typing up a longer post about that experience and tips for picking schools for anyone that didn't get in this round sometime in late February.

One more time...

PLEASE! Remember that you can be identified by what you post online. I deliberately avoided coming onto GradCafe while I was looking at applications, but I see many familiar names now that I'm back. If you do not want to be identified, use caution when posting. Don't put your location, use your real name, etc. Grad recruitment committees frequently troll this board for information (based on my experience and the experience of other senior students I know) without posting or signing in.

I can't wait to meet the people I helped select during my service on the adcomm. Best of luck to all of you who applied!

 

I'm curious because this keeps coming up in different places- what kind of information is it that you're advocating against posting? I've found this forum especially helpful for getting a sense of what types of scores, research experience, interests, etc. were helpful in gaining admission to good programs. Should we withhold basic stats?

[amlobo]

When you post stats, you become identifiable to adcomms (via GPA, GRE, school, city, research interests, etc.).  If you are not worried about being identified, post whatever you want.  I know a curious adcomm could identify me based on my posts on gradcafe.  However, I do not post anything anonymously that I would be afraid to have associated with me publicly, so I don't care if I'm identifiable.  I agree that a certain level of openness on the forum is incredibly helpful to its purpose.  But, some people are hesitant to risk identifying themselves, which is why private messages exist

[ohgoodness]

When you post stats, you become identifiable to adcomms (via GPA, GRE, school, city, research interests, etc.).  If you are not worried about being identified, post whatever you want.  I know a curious adcomm could identify me based on my posts on gradcafe.  However, I do not post anything anonymously that I would be afraid to have associated with me publicly, so I don't care if I'm identifiable.  I agree that a certain level of openness on the forum is incredibly helpful to its purpose.  But, some people are hesitant to risk identifying themselves, which is why private messages exist

Netiquette works both ways in most cases.  Secretly reading people's discussions and chitchatting about it in the dark is considered bad form in most circumstances and should be frowned upon.  It is very power games to announce yourself as a person in authority/power and then point out what other people should think of/limit.

 

I understand that alot of these posts do arrive within the context of things going in the wrong direction on this forum but it still feels rather weird that it hints that we should beware of "our actions" since we are judged on them by our seniors..

[Darth.Vegan]

I totally agree. I never expected, or wanted to be anonymous here. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that someone would use old YouTube comments as ammunition against me though. I rest assured in my belief that people involved in AdComs would not take some pettiness like that and use it to deny an application though. Anyway, thanks for the post FertMigMort, I look forward to reading your insights! 

[FertMigMort]

Netiquette works both ways in most cases.  Secretly reading people's discussions and chitchatting about it in the dark is considered bad form in most circumstances and should be frowned upon.  It is very power games to announce yourself as a person in authority/power and then point out what other people should think of/limit.

 

I understand that alot of these posts do arrive within the context of things going in the wrong direction on this forum but it still feels rather weird that it hints that we should beware of "our actions" since we are judged on them by our seniors..

Just to clarify, I personally stayed away from this forum while I was on adcomm. When I was a graduate recruitment member, we often used these forums to determine where students might have other offers from (listing the schools you were accepted to at the bottom) which isn't always information recruits are forthcoming with on their weekend. Most schools (the 5-6 I have experience with) do look at these boards to gain more information. Right or wrong, I just feel that I should publicize that knowledge to anyone who thinks they are remaining semi-anonymous. It's not so much about judging as it is about gaining information. I hope that clarifies what I meant here.

 

 

I totally agree. I never expected, or wanted to be anonymous here. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that someone would use old YouTube comments as ammunition against me though. I rest assured in my belief that people involved in AdComs would not take some pettiness like that and use it to deny an application though. Anyway, thanks for the post FertMigMort, I look forward to reading your insights! 

Darth, I've seen your posts here for a while (since before my service on the adcomm) and I'm sorry that happened. That's very atypical and I hope you know that very few people would go to those lengths to identify someone. I'm talking more about people who have a handle like MikeSmith and then are surprised that people can figure out who they are.

Anyway, glad to be back everyone!

[ohgoodness]

Just to clarify, I personally stayed away from this forum while I was on adcomm. When I was a graduate recruitment member, we often used these forums to determine where students might have other offers from (listing the schools you were accepted to at the bottom) which isn't always information recruits are forthcoming with on their weekend. Most schools (the 5-6 I have experience with) do look at these boards to gain more information. Right or wrong, I just feel that I should publicize that knowledge to anyone who thinks they are remaining semi-anonymous. It's not so much about judging as it is about gaining information. I hope that clarifies what I meant here.

 

 

Darth, I've seen your posts here for a while (since before my service on the adcomm) and I'm sorry that happened. That's very atypical and I hope you know that very few people would go to those lengths to identify someone. I'm talking more about people who have a handle like MikeSmith and then are surprised that people can figure out who they are.

Anyway, glad to be back everyone!

 

 

Just to clarify - I am sorry for this standing-out as a post directed at you (since it was in your thread) but it was more a general thought.  I think it is good to be clear about the fact that adcoms/whoever reads these post and that one should use common sense but many of these faculty/senior posts had such a feel of "kids - be nice or you'll never get your treat".

 

Thanks for not taking my post in the wrong way   I am not always a vision of clarity.

[overlyresearched]

FergMigMort -

 

Thanks for all the helpful insight (here and on other threads).

 

I've been posting here under one name or another in the past, but now that I'm a senior student, my posting will have to come to an end. I've been selected to be search committee for students this year and I want to follow the rules as strictly as possible, which means no posting on Grad Cafe.

 

This may be a bit of an ignorant question but what exactly does it mean to be on a "search committee"? I wasn't aware students were that closely involved in the admissions process.

[FertMigMort]

FergMigMort -

 

Thanks for all the helpful insight (here and on other threads).

 

 

This may be a bit of an ignorant question but what exactly does it mean to be on a "search committee"? I wasn't aware students were that closely involved in the admissions process.

It varies by department. I was a member of the admissions committee, which included reviewing applications, etc.

 

 

Just to clarify - I am sorry for this standing-out as a post directed at you (since it was in your thread) but it was more a general thought.  I think it is good to be clear about the fact that adcoms/whoever reads these post and that one should use common sense but many of these faculty/senior posts had such a feel of "kids - be nice or you'll never get your treat".

 

Thanks for not taking my post in the wrong way   I am not always a vision of clarity.

I spend so much time trying to make my dissertation clear that I'm sure that my online posts aren't always clear either. No big deal. I always tried to be up front with that because sometimes people post things and when I was recruiting, I used that information to my advantage where I could. For example, if I knew that someone visited another school and they talked about it on the boards and then they came to my school and wouldn't share that information, I knew which tidbits to drop about our school to make it look more attractive. I think the other reason I hammer this home is because I'm about to go on the job market and I'm super paranoid these days.

[jacib]

I just want to say that at my school, I look at these threads and try to recruit people, but none of the faculty looks or knows about the forum.  I had a idle talk with the DGS once and he was like "Why are all these rejected kids emaling me all of a sudden?  We don't send out rejects for weeks.  How do they even know people got in?" and I was like "Well, there's this thing on the internet...."  He seemed uninterested.  At my school, most of the post-adcomm recruiting is left up to the graduate students.  I think this PhD comic sums up everything about the relationship between grad students and professors:

 

So no one should worry "OMG three months ago I wrote something where I said this school was my second choice, but I really want to go there!"  It's not like that.

As for my own behavior on the forum, I try to avoid saying things that make me easily identifiable.  At the same time, my subfields are specific enough that even with vague generalizations, people with good google-fu or people who have read all the grad student profiles at every top-25 school can definitely identify me (it happened at least once last year, with a kid I liked).  I mean, there are only a handful of students really working my subfield in the first place, and I mention the country I work in.... I really think that narrows it down to about five to seven grad students in the country based on just those two things, add in the other details like I say I'm at a private school.... you know?  However, I like to think what I have posted reflects well on me both as a person and as sociologist (maybe even better than reality?) and that's not an accident.  Most things I write (especially since I've gotten in, but even before), I write with the thought "Would I be okay with this if G-d forbid my name were attached to it?  Or would it be rly embarrassing?"  Now that I'm becoming an academic, this is pretty much how I think about everything I put on the internet.  I don't want some creepy student finding some inappropriate reddit post ten years down the line... It leads to self-censorship, sure, but it mainly keeps me from saying unnecessary dumb things.

 

I think FertiMigMort is a great example of this: if I were to identify her Grad Cafe name with her in real life, I'd respect the real life person more, not less.

Edited January 31, 2013 by jacib

[FertMigMort]

I think FertiMigMort is a great example of this: if I were to identify her Grad Cafe name with her in real life, I'd respect the real life person more, not less.

 

Thank you jacib, that means a lot to me. I try to be the same anonymously as I am in real life: respectful, honest, and straight-forward.

I will say that our DGS told me that she looks at the forum sometimes. While on adcomm it didn't play a role at all, but as I said, during recruiting we use it as a tool to figure out how we can make more competitive offers.