The "To which other universities are you applying?" Question

[philosophe]

Hi friends, I've ben trying to get a start on the apps that are available online before the craziness of the semester starts. Most of them ask something along the lines of  "To which other schools are you applying?" I have mixed feels about responding to this question. I'm uncomfortable with how this information might be used... Any thoughts? Will you be listing your schools on the application? 

 

[fuzzylogician]

The site is still re-indexing posts following the upgrade to the new version of the software, but that should be done within the next day or so. At that point, PLEASE run a search for previous posts on this question. It has been discussed ad nauseam on the board, and you'll be able to find many opinions on the matter. 

The short answer is: Programs use this to gauge their competitor set. It helps them know how they are perceived by applicants and to formulate a strategy to better target the students they want to have in future years. I am not aware of any other use of this information. The way I handled it was to choose 2-3 other schools (out of the 8 I was applying to) that I felt were similar in relevant ways to the school I was applying to (strength in similar subfields, similar theoretical approach to research, similar ranking) and gave those as my other schools. 

[philosophe]

At that point, PLEASE run a search for previous posts on this question. It has been discussed ad nauseam on the board, and you'll be able to find many opinions on the matter. 

No need to be so abrasive. I'm sure there are virtually no new questions to be found, as students have all the same concerns year after year. 

That being said, your answer is helpful. I was merely wondering if anyone else in this admissions cycle (applying specifically for philosophy) planned to bypass this question or list their schools.

[fuzzylogician]

No need to be so abrasive. I'm sure there are virtually no new questions to be found, as students have all the same concerns year after year. 

No need to get offended and tone-police. That's really an unpleasant way to respond to someone who volunteers their time to help you to no benefit of their own. I offered a helpful answer and directed you to a way to find more. I'd have given links to search results myself but as I explained, old posts are still being reindexed. 

On your other point, your question is not specific to philosophy at all. You are of course welcome to restrict your attention to answers only from people from your field, but I would think it would be useful to consider all answers unless it becomes clear that there are field-specific differences. Yes, students have many of the same concerns every year. It wouldn't hurt many of the visitors to this site if they were able to search for information about questions they have using relevant databases. It's a useful skill to have for anyone who wants to be an academic. Then they can ask a more informed field-specific version of the question.

[TakeruK]

I listed my schools. I just filled in as many schools as boxes were provided (usually they say "up to 4 other"). I applied to 8 schools in total, so like fuzzy, I picked the 4 that were the most similar.

In most cases, this is a standard question in the "standard set of application questions" that every single applicant gets, no matter which program they are applying to. However, for the few schools where the department made their own application question, when they chose to ask this question, they were clear to say that our answer would not affect the admission decision (they said the same thing for the questions regarding financial aid). 

From talking to professors during visits and after getting to grad school, I found that the reason for the question was mostly what fuzzy said: to gauge main competitors for future years, but also to help them determine the number of offers to make. For example, if the program was planning to admit 5 students in total, and then they realise that all 5 of their top candidates also put School X as the answer to this question, and they know that School X is their main rival (let's say half of their admitted students end up picking School X over them), then the program might choose to make 1 or 2 extra offers instead of waiting for the first 5 to make decisions and then make offers off the waitlist. Having this information allows programs to consider probabilities and make optimal decisions, which actually helps applicants too (if you were the first on the school's waitlist, wouldn't you rather get an offer in the first round rather than the second round if it was pretty much a sure thing that you would have gotten a second round offer?