Doctorate program contacting previous masters program for admission?

[cassandra26]

I applied for a doctorate degree during a time I was completing a masters degree at another university. In my application to the doctorate program, I did not list any of my masters professors as references.  However, I did list as a reference the supervisor to which I did my required internship during the masters program (not a professor; a supervisor at a company to which I had an excellent reference). 

 

I do not have a good relationship with the head of my masters program because of a personal issue which is completely unrelated to my academics. (The problem comes from her side- she does not like me and has tried on multiple occasions to bully me out of the program). Because of her bullying, I have had to go to the ombudsman as she refused to answer any emails or calls from me with pertinent academic issues during my studies.  Sounds extremely unprofessional, but that's what I'm dealing with. 

 

It turns out that the doctorate program I applied to called the head of my masters program to assess my candidacy for the doctorate study. I was really surprised when I learned about this phone call, as these schools are on different coasts and the head of my program was not listed as a reference. Needless to say, I was rejected from the doctorate program I so dearly hoped to be part of. 

 

My first question is: Have you ever heard of a doctorate program contacting your previous masters program inquiring about your performance (btw, I had a perfect 4.0) when they were not listed as a reference? 

 

My second question is: What to do about this professor? I attended a very prestigious university where the head of the program is very well-connected and known in this academic community. Any colleague could approach her in the future for a job or docotral program I am interested in and she could give me a horrible reference, thereby ruining and sabotaging my career. When I email her to set up an appointment, I receive no response. Calls are left unreturned. Because of this, I set up a meeting with the vice president of the school to ask her to ask the department head to accept my request to give no response if someone reaches out to her. The vice president said she would try, but cannot guarantee anything. 

 

Next question: what to do now with my career in light of this? I want a bright future in this field, and feel that the professor will go to all lengths to sabotage me. I feel I have taken the correct steps in trying to contact her (with no response), which is why I went to the ombudsman throughout my time at my masters, and now the vice president of the entire school. I cannot afford to have her ruin my career through blackballing me for jobs or other degree programs. Would the best action at this point (as I am graduating now) be to write her a nice letter asking her to respect my privacy? Another action would be hiring a lawyer to write her a letter asking her not to say negative things. However, I feel the latter action may inflame things even more. 

 

She is now going on sabbatical and will be away from the school. There will now be a new head of the program who I have never met. I have had great experiences with most professors in my department, but the head of the program in which I have spoken of has created a bad reputation for me in the department in which a couple of the professors have been tainted. My fear is that, in this head of programs absence on sabbatical, that one of those professors will also step in and give their 2 cents that the head of the program started. Should I write them a letter too asking them to give no reference? Again, I will not be listing any of these people as references. 

 

Thanks so much for reading my post. I am planning on applying for more doctorate programs (deadline Jan 15) and cant afford for this to happen again so would like to act fast. Thanks! 

[Maxtini]

Wow~ this really sucks. But as far as I know, reference from your previous institution is imperative for doctorate admission.

The doctorate admission committee contacted your master institution exactly because you raise red flag by not referencing any Professors from your master program. Because you don't mention any Professors to be contacted, they have no choice but to contact your head program. This is the biggest mistake you've made, in my opinion.

 

You don't need reference from your head of master's program, you just need at least one of the professors from your department (which really knows you well and your circumstances). This way, they will just contacted the Professor you referenced directly without contacting your head program. (And avoid all this fiasco) Even if the reference turns out to be a "so-so" and generic, you can compensate it with your outstanding reference from your supervisor.

 

I would suggest that you make appointment with one Professor who have a good relation with you and tell him/her about your circumstance. Make him/her as your reference.

Edited December 17, 2014 by Maxtini

[fuzzylogician]

This is a very unfortunate situation, as I'm sure you know. The professor has all the power and you have none. You didn't tell us what led to this rift between you and this professor, and you don't have to, but your best hope is that whatever happened will eventually blow over so that she may never like you, but will not actively seek you harm you. For present purposes, I think it is absolutely imperative that you find someone to be your champion. Is there anyone among your faculty who is aware of this situation and who will agree to take your side? The best way out of this is to have a letter from someone that can very briefly explain that there is a problem between you two and basically say that schools should not expect to get a fair assessment of you if they contact this professor. Could your advisor be that person? Concurrently, you may need to find a way to write a cautious and short one-liner somewhere in your application asking departments not to contact this professor for her opinion because of a personal issue between you two. 

 

To answer your question, it is not unheard of for an adcom to contact people they know to ask about students from their department who are applying. Not having letters from your current program is a glaring red flag and I completely understand why the adcom would try and sort it out. It means that something is wrong with your current program, and if you are a problem student, then they don't want you there for a PhD. You can't just not submit any letter from your masters program and not say anything about it. 

 

I am going to leave the questions about what to do with this prof to others, beyond what I've already said. I would probably leave it be for the moment. I can't imagine that threatening her with a lawyer would make her like you any more than she does now, and I doubt you could ever prove in court that she hurt your application, since the process is not transparent. I really think your best chance is to work on getting into a PhD program and then work on your career as far away from her as possible. If you suspect that she will continue to actively sabotage you, you may have no choice but to seek opportunities in related subfields where she doesn't have as much power. 

 

And finally, since she will be going on sabbatical, you have a very good chance to try and mend some broken fences. A bad reputation is hard to overcome but the way you do it is by showing it's not warranted. Could you do that by either taking classes with these professors and/or by meeting with them to talk about your research? Depending on your relationship with them and how much you trust them, you might very straightforwardly say you know that you have a bad reputation but you want to show them it's unwarranted, or you might pretend that nothing is wrong and try and start fresh, or something inbetween. The best thing you can do for yourself is make one of them (or both of them) see you in a new unbiased light so you might be able to get a positive letter of recommendation from them.

[TakeruK]

I'm sorry to hear that you are in this circumstance. Unfortunately, our system (not unlike other work environments though) is such that our bosses have way more power than we do. I would second fuzzy's suggestions above.

 

In addition to what the others said above, I do not think you can expect to get a positive reaction to a request that any of the professors in your current Masters program give "no response" if contacted. First of all, academics generally do not like being told what they can or cannot say, especially not from a student. Second, a recommendation is the most valued part of the admissions process (at least in my field) and a "yes" or a "no" from a highly respected professor (like your department head) can make all the difference. Thus, many professors feel it is their responsibility to academia to give honest and uncensored reviews when asked. Also, I would say that a "no response" or "decline to comment" type review is just as damaging as a bad review. Sometimes, the lack of details may cause the other party to imagine/wonder what really went wrong, and imagination can be much worse than reality.

 

I think fuzzy's idea to think of a careful way to say that you and your dept head have a personal, non-academic issue in future applications would be good. The downside is that it might draw attention to an issue that would not even be there if you had other profs from your Masters program as references already. I would say that by default, schools might contact people that you worked with (unless you did work with this professor as well), since Department Heads don't really have much contact with students, especially if you are not in the same subfield. In my 2.5 years at my current program, I've talked to my old Division Chair exactly 1 time and the current Chair zero times (the Division has about 100 graduate students). Both chairs were in very different subfields than mine.

 

So, I also think your best bet is to follow fuzzy's advice and try to talk to the other profs in your department. Find the ones that you have had the best relationship with and see if you can earn their support. You should also try to talk to the other professors who might have had a bad opinion of you from the head, but not because of anything you did directly. Have an honest talk where you do not blame anyone and let them know that you want to start fresh with them. I would not mention that the previous head has sabotaged your admission etc. 

[Eigen]

As mentioned, this does happen, and I'm sorry to hear it's happened to you and put you in a bad position. 

 

I'm more used to this in relation to post-graduate positions, but the general advice is applicable here as well. 

 

Ideally, you'd want to get someone *not* the head of the program that you have a good relationship with to write you a letter- perhaps the ombudsman? Someone from the institution who can write an "untainted" reference on your behalf- even someone who has not worked with you academically but can reference the personal rift between you and the program chair that is causing you to leave. 

 

Failing that, it's something you will need to address in your personal statement, but that's a lot harder. 

[Victoris]

cassandra26, sorry for your situation. Since you aren't going to list any of your graduate professors as references, do you have any undergraduate professors that you can contact?  

 

 

Your situation is similar to someone applying for a corporate position, having held 3 previous jobs, but listing his/her college professors as references.  There is no connection. 

 

 

Think hard.  There must be at least one professor who could write you a letter; consider your entire network. 

[rising_star]

To be quite honest, this doesn't surprise me at all. When I applied to PhD programs, one of my recommenders told me more than once that profs (not just POIs but those on the admissions committee) had called to verify everything in the letter and to get additional information. Not having a single recommender from your master's program is a huge red flag. Think of it as equivalent to applying to college but without any recommendations from your high school teachers. Your application stands out, and not in a good way. That's what led to the phone call and there's probably very little you can do at this point for this application or the January deadlines. To prevent this from happening, you really do need a letter from that university and, ideally, from that department. It could be someone with whom you took a course or two and did well, someone you worked as a TA or RA for, or whomever oversaw your thesis. Having that letter in the mix may lead to fewer of these undesirable (in your view) phone calls in the future.

 

As far as the personal conflict, you should know that personal conflicts can and will arise in the future. The way you've handled this thus far doesn't seem very accommodating, at least not in how you've portrayed it. Going over someone's head to the department chair, ombudsman, and vice president is a way to piss them off more than it is a way to fix anything. 

[agrizz]

hmmm.... this post is so applicable to my predicament...

 

FWIW: 

 

While in my second year of a PhD program, my father passed away, forcing me to reevaluate the poor fit I'd found with my PI. My performance subsequently lagged and I eventually took a masters from the program and left.  For the last three years, I've been working in a laboratory setting, upping my prestige through conference presentations and publications from two distinct laboratories.  I even enrolled in a doctoral level class while working as a laboratory manager to ensure to myself that I was ready to return to a doctoral program.  This said, I now have multiple publications, including 3 first-authored pubs, and more en route, as well as "stellar"/"glowing" LORs from three profs I've worked with since leaving grad school.  Nonetheless, I did not ask anyone from my former PhD program to write any LORs and listed only my teaching advisor from the department at my former grad school as a reference on my CV.  

 

I've been terrified of what the OP is talking about here.  To those that have responded, do you think the last three years have been sufficient to negate whatever influence my former PI could hold over my current apps? Or should I do (have done) more?

[rising_star]

agrizz, your situation is quite different from that of the OP, it seems. The lab experience and publications should help outweigh your previous PhD experience. I certainly wouldn't try to hide that PhD experience in your applications though! Someone may still contact your former PhD program and former PI but there's really nothing you can do about that now. Good luck!

[12345678900987654321]

My committee will call people they know at PhD applicant's MS schools all the time. 

 

No MS references when applying to a PhD program would be a HUGE red flag. 

 

If you're serious about continuing your education in this field you must find a champion in your current department. Don't do any of this via letters or emails. Make an appointment with someone.

[anotherapplicantanotherapp]

Eesh, yeah, I have a possible issue alone these lines, too, that has me mildly freaked out. It's scary when you think about how much damage one powerful person whom you've annoyed can actually do, it they choose too....

Edited January 7, 2015 by anotherapplicantanotherapp