Don't get too overeager

[Eigen]

Food for thought, if you're currently anxious and trying to not contact the committee/faculty at your institution too much:

 

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,158253.0.html

 

Pat yourself on the back for showing restraint, and realize how it looks on the other end. 

[sarab]

Good advise! I know some people just get too anxious though. Sometimes people struggle finding a good balance.

[Sarah Bee]

Good advise! I know some people just get too anxious though. Sometimes people struggle finding a good balance.

 

Not finding a good balance. That sounds like me!

[Loric]

Food for thought, if you're currently anxious and trying to not contact the committee/faculty at your institution too much:

 

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,158253.0.html

 

Pat yourself on the back for showing restraint, and realize how it looks on the other end. 

 

I think it depends on what you're asking and when and how..

 

This student apparently is asking about thesis stuff and who would be their advisor.. that's pre-app stuff. And you generally don't "ask" but rather come to some conclusions after a bit of discussion.

 

I just mentioned over in the visual art thread that I've got something like 50-something email threads (threads, not individual emails - there's many more of those) between myself and one school. Many are just automated emails and reminders to submit this or that.. but a good chunk are between myself and admissions over the trainwreck that is my application. I didn't apply for fall, because I'm an idiot - I turned in the app just before Christmas, because I'm an idiot, and that's lead to delays in the usual processing cycle.

 

Then because I got curious, I emailed and asked about the timeline - finding out that someone on the adcomm had "questions" about me and my portfolio. I submitted more materials at their request and clarified that I did in fact write my own book, thank you very much. (Note: I was told point blank that many applicants try to take credit for other people's work, or coauthors work, etc..)

 

And before all this nonsense, I had issues getting a transcript wrangled out of my old grad school because they decided I attended a semester - which I hadn't - and still wanted to be paid the tuition. There were emails back and forth about "Do you really need that transcript..?" "Yes." "Ok, here's why it's awful and wonky and not true, but you're getting it anyways, give me a few weeks to come up with a semester's worth of tuition to get it to you."

 

Oh, and admissions sent me a birthday card and I sent an email saying "Thanks for the card! Let me know if there's anything else you need from me, hope to hear form you soon!" which is actually what triggered the whole fiasco about someone on the adcomm having questions about my portfolio.

 

At a school that usually accepts/rejects people within 2.5 weeks, I'm going on 2.5 months since my app was completed, not to mention I started the process and emails back in September.

 

So on a purely quantitative standpoint, I've got way too many emails to the school. But when you look at it for content, none of them were just nonsense queries or nerves or whatever - there were valid reasons. Otherwise they'd have never written back and they'd certainly never have bothered with all the "oh, submit this too.." and also telling me they were hashing out the specifics of the program (it's new) and there were some bumps in the road and miscommunications on what the department wanted versus what the application was asking for (hence my additional portfolio bits.)

 

TLDR? If you have a good reason, email them. Wait a reasonable amount of time to hear back (several days to a week), then follow up again if you've not heard anything. But only if it's a good reason (like a stated timeline has passed) and always phrase things as inquisitive and checking in, no making demands or anything.

[sarab]

Loric, I don't think that's what Eigen meant when they said "don't get too overeager." It sounds like you're just trying to clarify stuff and not pretty much sound needy and like you've been accepted like the other applicant did.

[Loric]

A note, poking around those other forums.. can you (Eigen) perhaps relay the thought that acting as if every student that asks for anything is a burden is a pretty unattractive trait?

 

There are a few over there who seem like they'd be great professors.. but the others are practically asking to be eviscerated on their end of term class evaluations. I get pushy and obnoxious students, had to deal with them, but.. the complaints about the school not admitting qualified applicants and things along those lines ("At my other school we had such better prepared students..") make them look like raging a-holes.

 

"Hi, you teach at this school which you think is beneath you.. A reminder, you teach at THIS school, not that other one you keep lamenting was so much better. You're here, we're here.. you're not better than this."

Edited February 2, 2014 by Loric

[Loric]

Also read the thread about recommendation letters from those on an adcom's perspective...

 

What's the point of allowing/asking for recommendations from non academic sources if they're not seen as having any merit?

 

I feel very lucky to have a good relationship with the lone PhD in my old department and the department chair/head/whatever his formal title is. Otherwise by "their" standards my recs would have been useless.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Loric

[Queen of Kale]

Does this title remind anyone else of that scene in Natural Born Killers where Mallory Knox kills that mechanic and reprimands him to "Next time don't be so f'ing eager"?  There's really no SFW clip I could attach but now it's all I'm going to think of anytime I hear about someone contacting admissions about an application they're waiting to here back about. 

[starofdawn]

Unrelated to the thread, but related to the article... I'm even more paranoid now, since I never contacted any POI before applying! It seems like there are mixed messages whether or not to contact POIs before applying.

[peachypie]

Unrelated to the thread, but related to the article... I'm even more paranoid now, since I never contacted any POI before applying! It seems like there are mixed messages whether or not to contact POIs before applying.

I think that won't hurt you, contacting ahead of time will only have helped you but not doing so will generally not count against you.  just relax and keep the hopes up.

[Loric]

I think that won't hurt you, contacting ahead of time will only have helped you but not doing so will generally not count against you.  just relax and keep the hopes up.

 

It really depends on the field - in my old arena if you didn't make contact prior to applying you were often autorejected. Sort of a "Who do they think they are?!" but these were very small departments with 1-4 grad students.

[ERR_Alpha]

I didn't contact any POIs before applying because I didn't want to do it just for the sake - I'm not really sure what exactly I want to research.

 

Also, I've limited myself to contacting each school once (the ones I haven't heard from) about when to expect news. Especially since some of them have horrible websites with no information about it.

[Avatar123]

I didn't contact any POIs before applying because I didn't want to do it just for the sake - I'm not really sure what exactly I want to research.

 

Same here. I don't think contacting professors is important if you apply to some big name school. My application is also kind of generic (didn't mention any professor's name). I think that may have hurt my chances.

 

Also, I've limited myself to contacting each school once (the ones I haven't heard from) about when to expect news. Especially since some of them have horrible websites with no information about it.

 

 I haven't contact any department. I would wait until maybe 3/15 for engineering, depending on the deadlines.

[sarab]

Unrelated to the thread, but related to the article... I'm even more paranoid now, since I never contacted any POI before applying! It seems like there are mixed messages whether or not to contact POIs before applying.

 

Yeah, I agree. I've read mostly that it's not common in the STEM field but it is in others. I don't really know. Ultimately, it might come down to the POI's personality and preferences, and those are kinda hard to know.

[Loric]

I think it's related to just how much an academic transcript and test scores would clearly define how well you'd do in a program... In the arts it'd do fuck all, which is why they pretty much all have face-to-face meetings.

[kb1234]

If a faculty is so much narrow minded, I'd advise not to go to that school. 

[Loric]

If a faculty is so much narrow minded, I'd advise not to go to that school. 

 

At some point you run out of schools.. you're regrettably up against at least one of these people (if not more) at pretty much every adcom everywhere except for some really REALLY liberal schools.

 

The best we can hope to do is show the future adcom members that it's unfair and unjustified asshattery, so that when they step into the seat they'll not be the person pulling such hi-jinx.

Edited February 3, 2014 by Loric

[roguesenna]

Yeah, I agree. I've read mostly that it's not common in the STEM field but it is in others. I don't really know. Ultimately, it might come down to the POI's personality and preferences, and those are kinda hard to know.

 

actually I've read the exact opposite of that. If you read the entire thread from the linked article that started this thread a lot of the profs say that maybe the student got some bad advice that would apply better to STEM students and not humanities students. STEM students need to contact POIs so they can start to figure out if research interests align for potentional research assistant grants. since most humanities students are supported through Teaching asistantship grants -- which the individual professor has little control over -- POI is not as important in those fields.

 

I think it has mostly to do with being knowledgable about how your individual field and individual schools do things and what they expect. You have to be able to adapt your behavior to that because that's what they'll be expecting in grad school. My rule of thumb is that after turning in the app I will not contact them again unless they contact me.

[phdcandidate022014]

Unrelated to the thread, but related to the article... I'm even more paranoid now, since I never contacted any POI before applying! It seems like there are mixed messages whether or not to contact POIs before applying.

 

I took a two-pronged approach. Ultimately, I've observed that it could hurt or it could help or it could do neither.  Here are some thoughts, and I will note that I applied to some STEM and non-STEM programs, 10 in total.

 

1. Some departments or faculty webpages are very explicit in saying "do not contact advisers in advance". I did not contact those faculty or departments where this was the case.  There is a reason that these departments or faculty make the request to not contact them public and I wanted to honor that.

2. In the case where no written policy was stated (or if the faculty/department encouraged contacting people ahead of time), I did that.  But my approach was not to simply get them to notice me.  My gut says you can probably learn about 1/3 of what you need to know about a department/faculty member just by looking at their basic information online.  You can learn a bit more if you draw inferences from things like their manuscripts, etc. (e.g., a faculty webpage may show publications but be out of date, but a simple look in google scholar or sciencedirect can give you a clearer picture of productivity). 

 

So if I did contact faculty, it was for a specific purpose and only to get answers to questions that were not already answered.  Also, if I contacted someone, I would only do it once and would only re-contact if they replied to me.  My initial correspondence was kept short and to the point.  If they requested more information from me (they would often ask for a CV and some other information if they wanted to get to know me more) I would provide it to them, but I would not provide it to them unless requested.

 

Here is an excellent website that gives you perspective of a professor at a top school.  Many of his sentiments are true for professors at most schools: https://sites.google.com/site/chuckeesley/before-emailing-me

 

 

Since it is still early in the decision process, it's hard for me to say whether or not my approach was effective.  I will say that the faculty I contacted and corresponded with early on was a very good experience and I was left with very positive feelings and believe that correspondence will help them remember me when evaluations begin.  Furthermore, a couple of the correspondences ended up enlightening me to the fact that the school/faculty was not a good personality or research fit, even though my "desktop" analysis indicated otherwise. 

 

To sum it up with stats:

 

Total programs applied to: 10 (MIT, Berkeley, Yale, Stanford, U Chicago, UIUC, etc.)

Total programs where I contacted at least one faculty before the application season: 5

Acceptances from schools I contacted before the application season: 1

Interviews from school I contacted before the application season: 1 (offer of admission is forthcoming)

Total programs where no decision has been made: 8

[manduke]

Hmmm... I was actually considering emailing the head of the department I most want to go to, but I'm not so sure now after reading this thread. I wasn't going to ask for a status check and was instead going to supply new information about something that just happened that might improve my chances. Really I just wanted them to think about me again. I had already contacted a faculty member for information before applying though. Maybe it's just better if I sit tight and wait. I applied early December before the December deadline, but this department does not seem to start contacting people until the end of February. The wait is killing me!

[jmu]

Hmmm... I was actually considering emailing the head of the department I most want to go to, but I'm not so sure now after reading this thread. I wasn't going to ask for a status check and was instead going to supply new information about something that just happened that might improve my chances. Really I just wanted them to think about me again. I had already contacted a faculty member for information before applying though. Maybe it's just better if I sit tight and wait. I applied early December before the December deadline, but this department does not seem to start contacting people until the end of February. The wait is killing me!

 

I graduated during the application process and sent out an updated, unofficial transcript and an updated CV to departments I had not yet heard from with a note just letting them know that my files had changed. I also made it clear that I wasn't concerned if the new documents wouldn't be considered but was supplying them as a 'just in case.' I always emailed them to the graduate secretary and always heard back positively. In one case I got an email back from the GPD saying that I was already on the waitlist and the new files would be added to my packet in the case that it was reviewed again. In others they simply said thanks for the update and they would let me know. The only program I was outright rejected from was the only program who didn't get the updated files (they only accepted materials by mail and had already sent out decisions.) If you are careful to not come off as pushy or desperate I don't think it will really hurt you. Also, rather than the department head, email the GPD or the graduate secretary as they are more likely to actually put the files in the correct place.

[AccountingPhD2014]

Is it considered "over eager" if I request to sit in on a seminar the day before the on campus interview?

[manduke]

I graduated during the application process and sent out an updated, unofficial transcript and an updated CV to departments I had not yet heard from with a note just letting them know that my files had changed. I also made it clear that I wasn't concerned if the new documents wouldn't be considered but was supplying them as a 'just in case.' I always emailed them to the graduate secretary and always heard back positively. In one case I got an email back from the GPD saying that I was already on the waitlist and the new files would be added to my packet in the case that it was reviewed again. In others they simply said thanks for the update and they would let me know. The only program I was outright rejected from was the only program who didn't get the updated files (they only accepted materials by mail and had already sent out decisions.) If you are careful to not come off as pushy or desperate I don't think it will really hurt you. Also, rather than the department head, email the GPD or the graduate secretary as they are more likely to actually put the files in the correct place.

Thanks, jmu. I ended up going with a one paragraph update to the graduate secretary. I also said there was no need to reply and she could share the update or not as she felt appropriate.

Edited February 4, 2014 by manduke