Turning down a POI for grad school... Postdoc opportunities?

[bsharpe269]

I have asked this question before, worded differently, but didn't get many responses. I am trying to figure out whether being accepted to a grad school with an awesome POI and rejecting it could have negative consequence on postdoc opportunities.

My interests are pretty narrow and I know the top people working I my field and they are the people who I want to consider working with in grad school... But they are also the people that I will very possibly want to do a postdoc with. How would you handle this? Many of thrseprofessors collaborate so I dont think they'll necessarily forget me during grad school. It's likely I'd be working with them indirectly. I apply next year so I am trying to decide how to proceed.

[the_sheath]

I'd just respectfully decline the awesome POI if I got a better offer. They would probably understand. It's not like you banged down their doors and demanded admission and then snubbed them at the first opportunity.

 

Heck, I'd guess the fact that they accepted you at all should work to your advantage if they remember you.

 

"Well, gee, here's this exceptional student who we couldn't get before, and now he/she/gender-neutral-pronoun is an even more exceptional and has experience in the field"

 

Then again, they're probably going to judge you based on different criteria than the ones they did when you applied for the grad program. But that you turned them down for someone else? They'd have to be really bitter to hold on to that grudge for 4+ years (if it even manifests as a grudge at all), while ignoring the fact that potentially hundreds of other qualified applicants could come in and take your spot and then work under that POI and perform beautifully. Students come and go and slip out of their grasp--that's just part of the game.

[TakeruK]

If you follow normal social conventions when you turn down their offer, then of course there won't be any negative consequences. Most good students have multiple places to choose from and we all know that students can only take one choice. 

 

When I notified the other schools of my alternate decision, I kept the email short and simply said something like:

 

"Thank you for the opportunity to study with you at [university X]. In the end, my wife and I decided that the best decision for us was [elsewhere/University Y]. (I/We really enjoyed my/our visit to [university X/City X] and I appreciated you taking the time to discuss your research with me.) I hope to see you at future [Names of conferences that we would both attend.] and look forward to seeing you again in the future!"

 

If I didn't visit, then I didn't write the stuff in () of course, or I replaced it with Skype meeting or whatever it was. In some cases, I mentioned where I was going and in others, I did not, depending on how much interaction I had with the professor. 

 

I would say to keep it short and this is definitely not the right place/time to tell them why you liked another place better, or why their place wasn't good enough. They will get a ton of emails like this. Also, there are a ton of other people they could work with, so if you go on too long about how much you really wanted to go there but could not, it would just sound really patronizing.