Deferring: can it ever be done?

[knp]

Hey there!

 

I was going to say hello on the 2016 thread because I might be in the applications for 2016 cycle. I need to decide about that, though, so I figured I should make a separate thread for advice.

 

I will apply to a study/research Fulbright this fall. It's to a country that has a very low acceptance rate, but if I get it, I will take it. I also, however, have a clear top choice PhD program (which is in the top 20). I feel like I'm ready to enter a PhD program in 2016, but in my ideal world, I would get the Fulbright and enter a PhD program in 2017, even more prepared than I am now. But both of those are hard feats to accomplish!

 

So, what do I do? As far as I can tell from its website, the Fulbright gets back to you well after this PhD program does, which makes everything difficult. So is it possible to apply to the Fulbright and to PhD programs concurrently, even if there is no chance I'd turn down the Fulbright if I got it? I really wouldn't want to turn down an acceptance (!) from Top Choice to reapply the next year. At the same time, Top Choice U is really selective, so I would probably be rejected this cycle anyway. Not taking two chances at applying to Top Choice seems like a pretty significant downside to sitting out this entire PhD cycle for the chance at a Fulbright. But what if I got rejected from the Fulbright, when I would have been accepted to TC?

 

Basically: would it be presumptuous/rude to ask, before applying, if TC lets students defer for a year for opportunities like the Fulbright? If deferrals are something that's never granted, I would just sit out the cycle for PhD programs. (I might apply to MAs, and if admitted consider whether to attend, depending on funding, or to keep working.) The only professor/advisor who's weighed in for me—who is from a different, smaller, and weirdly structured department re: graduate admissions (they just overhauled most of their admissions protocols)—has suggested that even asking about deferring would be so rude that it might put me on some kind of blacklist forever. Does that seem right? Should I proactively just not apply to this PhD program, just in case I do get a Fulbright? Should I ask when I send my POI inquiries in the fall? Should I bring it up only if I end up with both acceptances in hand in the spring? Thanks in advance, I appreciate the help.

[mvlchicago]

I'd just email the faculty, 'cause many schools allow you to do the Fulbright while at their programs. One of my friends, who is going to an Ivy next year, is doing that.

[erchha]

Why is it that you would like to do a research Fulbright before entering a PhD program? Do you feel this will strengthen your application in future seasons or is this something you would like to do for the life experience? Many programs will assist you in grant applications during your PhD, in which case it may just make the most sense to go straight into a PhD program.

 

If you just want the life experience and would rather live abroad for a year before doing a PhD I would apply to both and worry about the possibility of deferral later. There is no reason why even if a school had no deferral policy they would look down upon a student taking a year off to do additional research, and your application would most likely still be favorably received the next year. 

[TMP]

Apply both.  Worry later.

[knp]

Thanks very much, that sounds like the right thing to do. My undergraduate advisor is a very kind man, but sometimes his advice about other institutions can be a little off. Much appreciated!

[dr. t]

Check that. I was told by the Fulbright officer at my school (which is Harvard, so she has nonzero experience) that I should do a Fulbright if I don't have a firm research plan or apply to PhD programs if I do. Doing both would result in relatively weak applications to each. If you don't need the extra time, save the Fulbright as a way to fund archive research in your 4th year of your PhD.

[Joan Callamezzo]

I would forget about the Fulbright. The research/study Fulbright is pretty much impossible to get unless you are ABD, at which point it is still highly unlikely. If you want to apply to Italy or England I would doubly forget it. If you have what it takes to get the research Fulbright as a BA, you are brilliant and extremely qualified and will probably get into a slew of PhD programs.  

[knp]

Oh no, I'm not applying to anything in Europe! The country's program is really selective (I don't know why; the neighboring countries' programs are significantly less so), but I'm sure it's much easier to get than the UK or Italy.

 

Why do I want this? My research plan is a little unsettled, but I want more language experience that would be very hard to get here: at all but one of the PhD programs I'm considering, I would be limited to summer courses, which would correspondingly do a number on my research time. This is because while I could be solid on languages, if I had different interests, there's a third, very obscure language in the picture that I really want to have started working with before I begin my PhD.

 

So, I study a country's colonial history in a region/period in which there are two main colonial, European languages. I am 100% on one of them and 80%-but-could-easily-get-to-100%-in-a-year for the other. However, there is also an important colonized language in this region, one that I've never taken a course in. Unfortunately, it is offered in <10 PhD-granting universities in the US, and only one of them has a faculty member in the history department I could even possibly work with. (Our interests are a pretty terrible match.) Depending on how you define 'need,' I don't need to know the colonized language to do my work. 90%+ (maybe up to 'all', depending on eventual topic) of my potential source materials are in the two colonizing languages. However, I'm interested in history from the colonized people's perspective and in the history of language and in dictionaries of colonized vs colonial languages, so I really feel like I need to have started working with this language before I enter a PhD program. Yes, I could apply for the Fulbright in year four or five and take classes as I do archival research, but I really want to have some familiarity with this language, if not fluency, incorporated into the earliest foundations of my work. So, I want to go do coursework in this language at a university that offers it in my target country. Perhaps it is a failure of creativity on my part, but I don't see how I could get the foundation I want without going abroad to get it. I live in DC, and unfortunately, I haven't found a language course in my target language that is currently offered in this city. But I would appreciate thoughts!

Edited April 1, 2015 by knp

[poliscar]

As far as I know, deferrals simply don't happen. I don't think that asking for one is nearly as rude as your advisor seems to think, but realistically it's sort of fool's errant. In the case that you get both, I would take the PhD offer over the Fulbright. Once you're in a program, you'll have more flexibility in terms of study, i.e. the possibility of spending time in the country in question before you begin research for the dissertation. 

 

[maelia8]

Have you thought about using another program to go on a language study trip before applying to the Ph.D., if you believe that having this language will substantially improve your application? I agree with the above posters that using a Fulbright Research Grant before applying for Ph.D. is probably not as good as saving that grant for your overseas research year when you're in the dissertation phase, but if this colonized language is still spoken in the country you research, do they have any government programs that fund foreign students to come learn the language? Alternatively, you could apply for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship Grant instead and live in the country for a year, learning the language hands-on while you teach English to children in schools there (if this country is part of the ETA program). Just some food for thought.

[rising_star]

Not a historian but, you really should try to save the Fulbright research/study grant for when you're actually in your PhD program if at all possible. If the country has ETA (English teaching) awards available, that might be a better choice since it won't preclude a Fulbright in the future. Deferrals can be tricky and I definitely wouldn't count on being able to get one. That said, the odds of getting a Fulbright to a competitive country and of getting into a PhD program are equally crappy. Good luck!

[knp]

Does the ETA let you choose where you go? My understanding is that it does not, so I had been leaning away from it because this language is strongly regional. Unless I am placed in this one city, or the capital, I am out of luck. Nor have I found any government programs to learn the language; it's associated with a terrorist regional separatist movement from some time ago, so preserving it is low on the government's priority list. Do I misunderstand the ETA's placement system, or should I scrap this Fulbright idea altogether?

[maelia8]

The ETA that I did allowed me to list preferences for states within the country where I wanted to go, and unless you wanted a really popular place, about half of the people who applied got their first choice. There was the option to include a statement requesting a specific city if you had an important reason to be there (such as family or research), but I don't know anybody who exercised this option so I can't tell you what reasons were considered "worthy" enough to allow for placement in a specific city. Of course, these policies could be different for the country that you want to go to (which I suspect to be different from the one where I went). If it really is so important for you to go to a specific place, it might be better for you to apply for the Ph.D. now and use FLAS funding later to study this language.