Friends/Family "helping" you decide which school is "better."

[qed67]

"Oh man Harvard is the best! Way more prestigious than some tech school."

"But I don't think their science and engineering is really better than..."

"Even if that's true, you'd probably get a better job if you went to Harvard since it's more famous. Obama went to Harvard!"

Every time.

[lpeppersauce]

- "You should go to the school in Boston, because there are more schools and companies around to collaborate with."

 

- "Well, so much collaboration is done over the internet now, and you really don't need to be there in person.  Besides, the other school is much more highly ranked in my field ..."

 

- "I'm not visiting you in Blacksburg, so go to Boston."

 

And the truth comes out.

[tarrman]

Hahaha I love these!

@qed67 I get the exact same responses except it's Princeton!

[qed67]

I guess they would be right if we were talking about humanities, bragging to people on the street, or something, but if you're going into industry as a scientist... I can't really get through to them that there are schools who's names match or beat Harvard, and also that grad school the name doesn't really matter, but who you work with. 

 

"Why are you even visiting that school if you already got into this school?"

"Because I like the professors there?"

[khaled]

This might be irrelevant, but I had this conversation a zillion of times: 

 

"Why don't you go to MIT or Stanford" 

 

"Well, I applied to them, but it is very competitive and I'm an international student. On the other hand, there are good or better applicants who graduated from schools they know of and have recommendations from professors they know in person" 

 

"I'm sure you can go to MIT, and recommendations are just a formality" 

 

"yeah sure sure ... will see" 

Edited March 8, 2013 by khaled

[crackthesky]

This thread is hilarious. 

 

When applying:

 

"Why don't you apply to Yale?! I LOVE Yale. They're Ivy, you know."

 

"There's no one at Yale I'm particularly dying to work with."

 

"Who cares about that? It's Yale."

[VBD]

"If you go to THAT school, then I can't brag about you to the other side of the family!"

[tarrman]

@Khaled I got that with MIT sooooo often. After months of everyone telling me I'd be a shoe-in and me trying to explain to them that it was highly unlikely, I was finally rejected. Their only response: "What?! They'll be sorry..."

[queenleblanc]

"You should go there, I've always wanted to live in the mountains!"  

 

"It is REALLY hot down there, I don't know if we can help you move..."  (gee, thanks mom and dad, it is only my TOP choice!) 

 

"Why didn't you apply to Duke?  They have a great voice clinic and the VA hospital is right there!" (uh, they don't have a MS in SLP or CSD program...)

 

"Wait, you actually are considering going THERE?"  (referring to a school with a lesser-ranked general undergrad reputation, but respected grad program in SLP and federal funding / grants / over half of admitted students get assistantships) 

 

 

 

All this is hypothetical of course, we are making preliminary decisions (husband and I)  because we are also job-hunting for him in cities that we feel are likely or cities that we would choose if I am accepted.  

 

 

 

Love this thread.  I also love the sh*t people say thread in "waiting it out."  People outside of this process just don't know, and no amount of explaining will help.  

[musichistorygeek]

I love this!

Me: deciding among WI, CUNY, and McGill.

 

My family: Where is McGill again? Will you have to write papers in French? Don't you want to move to NYC? Isn't it supposed to be a great place to be a musician?

 

Me: I'm a musicologist. And all three schools have some great people in my research interests.

 

My family: What's musicology again?

[Chui]

My mother just wants me to go to whichever school is closest to home, even though she'll never come visit and I won't come home unless I absolutely have to.

[jam_sister]

My mother:

 

"What's Stanford??"

 

Or even better.. "What's MIT??"

 

- when I didn't get into MIT - "Probably for the best. I've never heard of it before. And (insert random local college from hometown) sounds great"

[Queen of Kale]

My mom has a strange grudge against the University of Chicago because it gets cold there.  Other schools where she is convinced it does not get as cold: University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, and Brown.  And, as if that weren't strange enough, I lived in Chicago - I know I like the cold!  But every time we talk she says "but its soooo coooold" just about every other sentence.  Moms  

[nackteziege]

"If you didn't like Miami, imagine what going to that school in Maryland will be like."

(This was because I complained about road closure and the lack of signage leading to a trip taking 2 hours longer than it should've.)

 

"I told my friend about you thinking about going to Maryland; a girl was murdered there like last year!"

 

"I want to you factor travel into your decision.  I-95 is just the worst interstate, you'll see."

 

 

She really, really does not want me to go to UMD.

[nohika]

"Mom, I accepted my offer. Stipend was X amount."

 

"Are you sure that's enough? I'm really worried about you living with the cockroaches and eating ramen, like all the grad students."

 

"...what the heck?"

 

"It doesn't sound like enough...ask them for more money."

 

"[mentor] says it's a good award and the grad students say it's enough to live on. I'll be fine."

 

"I just don't want you living with cockroaches."

 

...I love you Mom, but dear god.

[pears]

nohika, you should totally get some pet hissing cockroaches, just for spite/giggles!

 

i made the mistake of telling my mom (we're quite close; my father and i, less so) early on in the process that one program was my top choice. what i really meant was it was the best research fit— this was before i'd realized that they literally have no funding for MA students, are more expensive by $9000 or so annually compared to my second choice program after rent etc., and has fewer lab resources than my second choice.

 

unfortunately, my second choice program (which, as you've probably gathered, is switching places with my once-top choice) is much closer to where my S.O. and his family live, so now my mom is convinced that i'm just trying to be closer to him. i mean, obviously, it's a perk to be closer to him and my coworkers/friends/family in a state i'm already familiar with, but really, it's coming down to money, research fit, PhD options down the road, and the availability of labs and whatnot for my research. i really value her opinion and i want her support, but it's so hard to convince her that i'm still putting myself first!

[juilletmercredi]

My mom got really excited when I got accepted to Yale's program in my field.  I had already been previously accepted to Emory, and that made her happy too, but Yale was YALE.  Except that in my field, Emory is in the top 10.  Yale is in maybe the top 15 or 20.

 

But she didn't give me any advice about where to go.  My mom's really easygoing like that; she was like that when I applied to college, too.  She just wanted me to go where I was happy, and do what made me happy, and she didn't care either way.  She was always going to brag.  Although she does like telling people that I go to Columbia.

 

I'm already starting to frame how I'm going to have the postdoc conversation.  Three of the best postdocs for me are at Penn State, UCLA, and UNC-Chapel Hill.  Yale has a decent one that appeals to me, but it's not at the top of the list, and I know if I communicate this information she's going to get all excited because then she can tell people her daughter got her PhD at Columbia and works at Yale.

 

They also can never get my title straight.  My sister was going around telling people I was a professor at Columbia because she heard I taught classes (I'm a TA.)

[lpeppersauce]

unfortunately, my second choice program (which, as you've probably gathered, is switching places with my once-top choice) is much closer to where my S.O. and his family live, so now my mom is convinced that i'm just trying to be closer to him. i mean, obviously, it's a perk to be closer to him and my coworkers/friends/family in a state i'm already familiar with, but really, it's coming down to money, research fit, PhD options down the road, and the availability of labs and whatnot for my research. i really value her opinion and i want her support, but it's so hard to convince her that i'm still putting myself first!

 I'm having this problem too!  A school that was not initially my top choice is rapidly moving into that position.  It's ranked #3 in my field, has plenty of funding and a good research fit, and is in a town I would enjoy living in.  Unfortunately, it's also where my BF will probably end up in a year or two, so my mother is convinced I want to go there so I can be closer to him.  Like you said, it's a perk, but definitely not my deciding factor.  But now, everything good I say about the school, she filters through a lens of "making excuses to go there to be closer to BF" and tries to convince me I should go somewhere else instead.  It doesn't help that it's in a town she would hate living in, and she's projecting that onto me and telling me how miserable I'll be there.

 

At this point, I'm just keeping quiet about the whole thing until I hear about funding.  It's probably terrible of me, but I'm kind of hoping I don't get funding anywhere else so she can't complain about me going where I want.

[Inyo]

But now, everything good I say about the school, she filters through a lens of "making excuses to go there to be closer to BF" and tries to convince me I should go somewhere else instead.  

 

That said, it is okay if you make a significant other a priority in your grad school decision! 

 

(I keep getting the opposite: "Which location is the best for your fiancé? You should do what's best for him." Me: "I narrowed schools at the application phase. He's really fine with any of my options.")

[katieliz456]

"You can't go to UNC because you're not a basketball fan. What *is* a 'Tar Heel', anyway? That's a dumb name!"

 

"You know, your cousin's neighbor's daughter went to Vanderbilt for undergrad.  She studied archaeology, and she couldn't find a job anywhere! She ended up volunteering at some Native American museum and depending on her parents for money!"

[selecttext]

"You know Vancouver is a very expensive city to live in, you should move to Toronto instead"

[Sorawit]

"Why don't you apply for X (some universities in Thailand, where I'm from) instead? Maybe you can keep your job and study at the same time."

 

This is from my mom.  I know she doesn't want me to move half the world away, but if there was such program in Thailand (master/phd in environmental policy) I wouldn't have spent 3 years trying to get into one of these schools.

[jkabo]

I've got a colleague who is mad at me for not demanding full funding from Columbia SPH and then taking out a $50,000 loan to cover living expenses. I try to explain that it's hard to pay the mortgage as it is and he says, "I don't care!" . . . I guess that's what you get for talking to people.

[bless_yourheart]

This thread has read my mind. I JUST got off the phone with my family and they've gone insane. I try talking to them about legitimate concerns with programs and not only do they *not* listen to me, they say things like "Oh just go to (insert Ivy program here)," when I try and talk about my issues. The worst? "Don't go to a seminary, all they'll do is proselytize you! Seminaries are just religious institutions, they aren't real schools!"

[Emdave]

My favorite thing is when parents just assume that applying to grad school is the same as applying to undergraduate.

 

Mom: "You should apply to that school your best friend went to, Middleburg? He liked it there!"

Me: "Do you mean Middlebury? It's just a college. I can't apply there."

Mom: "Well it was good enough for him, why isn't it good enough for you?"

 

Cue facepalm