POI asked me where I got offers from, how do I respond?

[Aminoacidalanine]

Hey clinical psychology applicants! 

 

I hope your interviews are going well! 

 

I have a question regarding post interview interaction that I was wondering if I can get some advice on. I am a high alternate at a school that is high on my list and I am currently holding an offer at another school that isn't as high on my list, mostly due to funding reasons. My POI at the school where I am a high alternate has asked me which school gave me an offer and I'm just wondering what are some factors I should consider before responding to her question. 

 

Thank you so much for your help and good luck with your applications!

[Tahlain]

I say be honest. You'll wind up in the best place for you, whether you realize it at the time or not. 

 

I wouldn't lie. Psychology is a relatively small world, especially it's subdomains. And you don't want to make a bad impression. 

[rising_star]

I would be honest. It's likely that you're in a narrow area so all of the POIs will know each other anyway. In other words, the person asking you could probably find out without asking you if they really wanted to.

[Eigen]

Honestly. 

I've never seen this turn out poorly- either the school sees it as a reason to up their offer to get you on board, or at worst, nothing changes.

[jellyfish11]

I would send your POI the actual offer details with the funding amount (perhaps the actual letter as an attachment?) This is what my MA advisor told me to do with my offers when applying to PhD programs. Make sure you tell the POI that although you have a funded offer at another school, you are more excited about the program at their school and prefer it over the other school. You can even say "I plan to seriously consider every funded offer I get, but currently your school is at the very top of my list." That way, you still give yourself room to choose anywhere. This might incentivize your POI to make sure the school extends an offer to you sooner rather than later so they can lure you away from the other program.

[TakeruK]

I would also say you should answer this honestly. Like Eigen said, it could help you, or at worst, nothing will happen. I could see one situation where certain answers might result in a rejection. For example, if you told the school at which you're a high alternate that you actually really prefer the other offers you already have, then it's likely that this school will accept someone else instead of you. But this doesn't really hurt you since if you were honest about preferring the other schools over this one, then you don't need an offer from this school. (If for some reason, you really wanted to go to that school but lied and said you didn't want to go to that school, then this would be bad for you, but why would you ever do that?)

I wouldn't necessarily send the other school's offer right away without being prompted to though. I would tell them something like: "Your school is the [top choice / high on my list] and I currently have received funded offers from Schools A, B, and C" (say they are your top choice if it's true, otherwise say that they are a high priority for you). You could also add that you are willing to send along a copy of the offer letters from Schools A, B, C if they would like, however, if they wanted them they would probably ask. 

[socpsychstudnt]

I would be careful in answering this - apparently, it's commonplace that programs will choose not to offer you a spot if they know you have an offer from a "better" school that they think you will choose over them (as to not waste the "offers" they extend).

For reference - https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/06/new-book-reveals-how-elite-phd-admissions-committees-review-candidates

[Rigid_Designator]

What I have heard from my professors in my MS program is that IF you are directly asked this question, answer fully and honestly. The reason you're being asked is because professors don't always have funding for a new person yearly. This means they want to be careful extending an offer; they want to ensure they're going to get someone to say yes, otherwise they just wasted their chance to get a new student (I learned this typically occurs in a rotation, meaning it might be one or more years before that POI gets another chance at recruiting a new doctoral student).

You want to let them know what your other offers are, what type of funding you would be getting, etc. If the POI who asked you is one you would prefer to work with, this needs to be known. But not to the extent that it sounds like you're desperate and will do anything to work with that POI, even if it means accepting a lower offer from him or her. Knowing what other offers you have shows you're competitive and gives the POI an idea of how much to offer you. It's all about negotiating. Ph.D programs have a lot of negotiating and bargaining involved when it comes to selecting students.

[TakeruK]

1 hour ago, socpsychstudnt said:

I would be careful in answering this - apparently, it's commonplace that programs will choose not to offer you a spot if they know you have an offer from a "better" school that they think you will choose over them (as to not waste the "offers" they extend).

For reference - https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/06/new-book-reveals-how-elite-phd-admissions-committees-review-candidates

I think I tried to address this in my post above but after re-reading it, I realise it might not be very well written. So, I'll try to present the ideas again. Okay, so the scenario is that School A is asking you about other offers. You have an offer from School B, which is a "better" school. You will answer honestly so there are two possibilities:

1. You prefer School A over School B and you tell them the truth: that you have an offer from School B but you are more interested in School A. I don't think the advice from the book applies here. This is because the advice from the book is correctly saying that schools don't want to waste a spot---i.e. they don't want to offer you a spot if you are just "collecting acceptances" or if you already have little intention of going there. But, if you tell you them (truthfully) that you would take a spot at their school over School B, then there is no reason to not make you an offer if you would otherwise get one.

2. You don't prefer School A over School B and you tell them that. You might get rejected from School A after this. But there's no harm done, after all, you prefer School B over School A anyways. There's nothing lost in being rejected from a school where you already know is not your top choice. In my opinion, the point of the admission season is not to collect as many acceptances as possible, but to get the one or two acceptances that are a good fit for you!

So, I still think the best thing to do is to be honest---with both yourself and the school. When preparing to answer this question, you should already have enough information to know how excited you are about this school vs. the other offers you have. Of course, if you are more excited about this school and you tell them that you currently prefer their school over the other offer you have, this doesn't bind you to actually accept---it's clearly dependent on factors like the funding offer you'd get, how the visit goes, etc. But this is known---you don't have to state it explicitly.

[Eigen]

2 hours ago, socpsychstudnt said:

I would be careful in answering this - apparently, it's commonplace that programs will choose not to offer you a spot if they know you have an offer from a "better" school that they think you will choose over them (as to not waste the "offers" they extend).

For reference - https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/06/new-book-reveals-how-elite-phd-admissions-committees-review-candidates

I'd be careful taking the results of one (hotly debated) book and generalizing it to "commonplace". 

That said, it's common sense that schools don't want to waste offers on people who are obviously not going to attend. But as TakeruK says, if you want to attend, tell them your other offers and make sure they know they're one of your top (or your top) choice. 

Then the offer becomes leverage, rather than a risk. 

[daisy_may]

I would just answer it honestly... Sometimes it helps professors to know that you are a "hot commodity" and have other offers. If you prefer the other school that you are an alternate at tell the professor this and hopefully they can make it happen for you! Good luck!

[Oshawott]

31 minutes ago, Eigen said:

That said, it's common sense that schools don't want to waste offers on people who are obviously not going to attend. But as TakeruK says, if you want to attend, tell them your other offers and make sure they know they're one of your top (or your top) choice. 

To add to this, schools want to increase (or at least maintain) their prestige, and they aren't going to do this by accepting sub-par students. While its obvious that POI's won't extend offers to people who don't think would come, there are better indicators than the student getting an offer from a "better school". How you conduct yourself in interviews would be a better gauge of your interest. These professors have interviewed hundreds of applicants so they can probably tell whether you're feigning interest.

Then there's the fact that there may be objectively better researchers at lower-ranked schools. If a student is doing their research into these programs, they'd go to a lower-rank school with a supervisor who consistently places students in tenure-track (or highly desirable non-academic) jobs than a higher rank school with a supervisor who doesn't. One of my undergraduate mentors decided against going to Ivy League schools (that he was accepted in) for that very reason.

Also: there's no point in lying. My POI's and other lab members who I interviewed with guessed everyone I applied to, with a high degree of accuracy given my interests.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Oshawott

[socpsychstudnt]

3 hours ago, Eigen said:

I'd be careful taking the results of one (hotly debated) book and generalizing it to "commonplace". 

That said, it's common sense that schools don't want to waste offers on people who are obviously not going to attend. But as TakeruK says, if you want to attend, tell them your other offers and make sure they know they're one of your top (or your top) choice. 

Then the offer becomes leverage, rather than a risk. 

You're right - I'm sure it varies a lot by university and program. When I mentioned this phenomenon to some folks in the field of psychology that have a pretty good insight into a variety of programs, they seemed sort of like, "well, yeah, that's just how it is". Of course, that's just their perspective, and of course, you'd never want to mislead any prospective programs. I'm sure a thoughtful answer (that makes it clear you're strongly interested in them) is the best route.