I am the ghost of applicants past. Please heed my warning.

[thePhDantom]

I am a current PhD student in a top humanities program who will be leaving academia completely by the end of this year. I was once in many of your shoes: young, eager, intelligent, and excited by the prospect of attending graduate school. Now I am fleeing a corrupt and abusive situation by the skin of my teeth. Sadly, some of you reading right now will find yourselves in similar situations a few years from now. But it is my great hope that by sharing a few questions/guidelines/thoughts that I wish that I’d known to ask that the likelihood of this might be reduced. So, without further ado, here are the questions:

 

-       Is the program situated in a legitimate department or does it appear to be floating between departments? How many departments do the affiliated faculty in your program belong to? Where would you take your classes? Some PhD programs are smoke and mirrors, designed merely as a means of drawing additional funding to the undergrad side of the department. Beware of this ruse.

-       Do faculty seem too enthusiastic about you or your research? Do they seem to accept you too quickly? Does it seem like an amazing fit (rather than a professional relationship established on a foundation of mutual respect)? Err on the side of skepticism; the program’s aim may be to draw you in at any cost.

-       How do students feel about the city/town/neighborhoods where they live? Do they seem genuinely satisfied or do you get the sense that they’re stretching the truth? Some may tell you that location doesn’t matter—it does. A lot. Listen to your gut.

-       Do you get a tense, skittish, or otherwise “off” vibe from any of the faculty (particularly those who will have power over you)? Again, listen to your gut.

-       Do you have a dissertation advisor established when you leave interview weekend (at the latest)? If not, move on—full stop. If no one at the school stakes their claim on you and wants to support your research when you interview (or you get the sense that there are "a few possibilities"), no one there will ever want to support your research.

-       Look at the undergrads. Yes, I know. But please do try to get a strong sense for the culture of the school as a whole especially if you will have to teach. It will impact your experience tremendously. Remember: you will be working in this environment for up to a decade.

-       Be very wary of programs that push teaching as “important career development”…this is how PhD students become cheap labor for departments.

-      Do you best to find out what the climate is within the department and at the school with regards to PhD students preparing for careers outside of academia. Is it the topic-that-must-not-be-named? Is there open dialogue? Opportunities to work in capacities other than research or teaching? Even if you're a die-hard future academic it may not hurt to be in an environment that demonstrates an awareness of what's going on in many fields with regards to opportunities and access. How invested is the program in its students' success?

 

Read between the lines of what’s posted on the department websites. Keep them in mind when you talk to your contacts and POIs. Carefully look out for these things during your interviews and campus visits.

 

I am not a troll—this is all very serious. I would provide more details about my particular situation, but I am not here to denigrate my school or program in the event that action is taken against the offending parties and the program redeems itself in the future. Other “ghosts”—please feel free to add your own advice for current applicants to this thread.

 

- The Ph_Dantom

[Vene]

-       Do you have a dissertation advisor established when you leave interview weekend (at the latest)? If not, move on—full stop. If no one at the school stakes their claim on you and wants to support your research when you interview (or you get the sense that there are "a few possibilities"), no one there will ever want to support your research.

I'd say for this one you have to consider the field. You mention you're in the humanities and this may well be true there, but I don't think that's the case in science. Most programs I've looked at have a rotation system and I honestly prefer it over being thrown into someone's lab and hoping it works out. That said, if the program doesn't do rotations and you don't have an advisor lined up then it makes more sense to run like hell.

 

But overall I think you have good points.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Vene

[TakeruK]

I'd say for this one you have to consider the field. You mention you're in the humanities and this may well be true there, but I don't think that's the case in science. Most programs I've looked at have a rotation system and I honestly prefer it over being thrown into someone's lab and hoping it works out. That said, if the program doesn't do rotations and you don't have an advisor lined up then it makes more sense to run like hell.

 

But overall I think you have good points.

 

But even in the sciences, part of this original advice is very good too. Most US science programs do not place students in a lab directly but the rotation process is such that every student is going to be able to be part of lab no matter what. In other programs, a student might end up without any PI willing to take them on! And I think these are very different types of departments and it's important for a potential grad student to learn which departments are which before making a decision.

 

Sometimes the difference might be policy or just overall attitude of the department. For example, in my program, we complete two different mini-projects with different professors in our first year and defend them in our qual exam at the end of year 1. It is kind of like a rotation, except we have the choice of doing the projects concurrently or sequentially. Most students will decide on their first advisor when they accept and probably pick the exact projects before they arrive to the school. The second project is usually determined a few months later. The student usually extends one (or sometimes both) of their first year projects into their eventual dissertation work (in some cases though, they go with a completely new project). However, upon acceptance, every student has at least one professor who has committed to paying for them in Year 2 (year 1 is covered by a departmental fellowship); usually the professor of the first project. They take the risk that the student might actually spend more of their time on a different project but it's a shared risk that basically will average out over all the profs. So in this sense, the "rotation" and policy is structured so that although new students aren't directly assigned to a professor (so there is no absolute guarantee that you will work on your dissertation with who you want when you begin), every student does have a support system in place to take them through the first two years at least!

 

For programs with more traditional rotations, the department can still strongly support the student by providing departmental funding for X years so that a new student can have time to develop desirable skills so that a professor will take them on. And, they might spend time coaching students and advising them so that they make good selections for rotations that will ensure a better chance of placement (i.e. warning students when they pick mostly low-placement labs to rotate through; PIs being upfront with rotation students about their funding and their chances of being placed). Basically, when the "attitude" of the department is one that cares about the success of its students and does whatever it can to provide the support so that they can succeed, then it is a good place to be. No need to completely establish dissertation advisor upon acceptance but it's important to at least know that you are going into an environment where you will be given every opportunity to succeed, instead of one where they accept more students than places and expect to "weed out" students!

 

Learning which programs are which can be hard. In science programs, I would say one does this by talking to current grad students about the entire rotation process as well as the professors they want to rotate with. Find out about how much space each lab has, how popular each lab is and basically placement rates for each professor. I would modify the OP's advice for rotation based schools to be certain that you have at least one (better if it was all) of your rotations figured out.

[St Andrews Lynx]

I guess in the sciences, the advice can be altered to:

 

"Look for 2-3 faculty that you would be interested in working for at the visiting day/interview, and who express mutual interest in you joining their lab and doing a rotation with them and who have the money to do so." If you're only joining the PhD program to work with 1 faculty member...well, plenty of things can go wrong.

 

And yes, please trust your gut instinct. If something about the situation seems "off" then it probably is. 

[Vene]

@Takeruk,

For the program I'm in we're actively encouraged to talk to the PIs about funding before we rotate, I would agree that you want to be certain before you commit that you do have professors who are interested in taking you for a rotation and that the culture is such that PIs want to bring in grad students to train instead of using us as a laborer.

 

 

And yes, please trust your gut instinct. If something about the situation seems "off" then it probably is. 

I like this a lot. Overthinking can be just as dangerous as underthinking, if not moreso.

[juilletmercredi]

I support this post and pretty much everything it stands for.

 

I think sometimes in the admissions frenzy we forget that this is a two-way street.  You need to impress the department, but they also need to impress YOU.  Graduate school isn't required - so don't settle.  Don't go to a place at which you feel uneasy or that's not the right fit because it's the best of the options you have left (or the only option).  It's better to reapply the next year or forget about grad school altogether than waste time.

 

I especially co-sign the teaching as "important career development" one.  Realize that there's a difference between a department actually believing that and acting accordingly and a department using PhD students as cheap labor.  My department strongly believed in teaching as important career development, but they were pretty low-key about it and built opportunities into the program.  If everyone in the department is really hype about teaching being "REALLY important for your career," and all the grad students seem kind of frazzled teaching or TAing pretty much every semester, that's a sign that a department is using PhD students as cheap labor.

 

I also really like the last one, too.  One way that you can gauge this without revealing your own inclinations is that when you visit, ask the grad students what kinds of jobs they are looking to do after they graduate, preferably in public.  If they shift their eyes around uneasily before they answer...that's a pink flag, I would say, lol.  If they almost universally, 100% say that they want tenure-track jobs, that's also odd.  (One of the things that made me choose my department is when I asked this question, semi-publicly and privately, the grad students were not shy about talking about non-academic positions.  My department also maintains a list of alumni and their current positions, and I would say that fully 1/3 are in non-academic positions.  These are treated no differently from the academic ones.)

 

You may be a die-hard academic now, but 5-10 years can change you...or, you may be unable to find academic employment.

 

And heck yeah location matters.  I mean, keep an open mind - I'm currently in a small college town and I actually really like it, whereas 6 years ago I would've never imagined myself here.  But if you can tell you'll be miserable somewhere, don't go.

[lyrehc]

I disagree about having a dissertation advisor before starting.  I entered my program *knowing* I was going to work with someone specific.  I had my entire committee together within 6 weeks and my plan of study meeting in November of my first year.  Then, my interests changed.  

 

I think it is more important to talk to current students in the program about how faculty mentorship works.  Are the faculty accessible to students?  Do the current students feel that they are being supported not only in joining but in completing their programs of study?  Despite my shift in interest I am extremely happy where I am at and the faculty has been amazing -- a feeling that is shared by the vast majority of students in the program. Knowing who you want as a committee chair is much less important than making sure that the faculty is there to give you the tools for and support you through the process of success.

[thePhDantom]

If the faculty is supportive of your project from the beginning and you have an adviser set up, by all means, consider the offer. That shows that they are invested in you as a scholar. They are aware that your topic may change, but are eager to work with you where you are. The alternative situation is that you will be left floating on your own until you “land” somewhere. Do not let this happen to you.

 

I have to disagree about making a decision based on what other students says regarding faculty mentorship. Levels of access vary greatly in grad school. You may not know who anyone’s parents are, or what kind of socio-economic background they come from, or what other parts of their identity play into how they are treated in the program. There could be eight students who thrive there, and one who doesn’t; that doesn’t make the one’s experience any less valid.