Shotgun Approach...really this Common?

[sds2020]

Hello. I am new to the forum (American) and hold an MPA. I am waiting for admission status on a second graduate program that is more specialized.

I am truly stunned by the volume of comments on the main roster that celebrate Acceptance, and then ask for advice on which school, or whether the applicant should even do the program. Not to mention those that ask for more details on the program they have just been accepted to! Ie., paraphrasing, "Received acceptance 3/31, how good is this program?" I realize a "shotgun" approach may be more common in some fields...but, come on! Is anyone else bewildered by this?

[ClassApp]

I'm not sure exactly which threads you're talking about, but--no. I applied to six schools and consulted with four professors to pick them. I looked them all up online, figured out who I wanted to work with, the differences in expectations, etc. All of this information is good and necessary, but that doesn't stop me from wanting more information. You also have to realize that schools don't put up the negative information! That information is crucial to a decision but must be learned through the grapevine. Even non-negative information often isn't posted to school websites, like the academic environment, how much they push publishing, the cost of living for that area, typical funding offers, etc. There are a million factors to consider when picking a program. It doesn't hurt to ask other people their thoughts! When I talked to my professors, I also knew that they (like everyone else) have biases. They applied and stayed at my school for a reason--perhaps there are certain things about the program here that they judge to be important. Other people and professors at other programs might judge criteria differently, and I want to know what they think about these grad programs and why. I'm also applying to a newer program that has very little information about it floating around, so I will want to hear more info about it from other posters. For most people wanting to pursue research at a higher level--we always want more information! And asking others on GradCafé is a great way to get more information you might not have access to otherwise. Again, I don't know exactly what you're talking about, but I don't think that asking for more information about a program necessitates that the person asking has a "shotgun approach".

[BamaBelle]

I agree with ClassApp. When I was researching my programs before applying there were things I liked about each one of them, but talking to people here has really helped me get a better feel for some of the programs, especially the ones I can't visit. I also didn't start asking these kinds of questions and seeing what people thought about certain programs until I was accepted to them, because I didn't want to fall completely in love with a school that I couldn't attend and end up with my heart broken. Talking to current students at programs has been the single most helpful factor in my decision-making process. It's the best way, in my opinion, to really get a feel for what the environment of the program is. 

[fuzzylogician]

Yes, this happens. Like with anything else in life, some people will be less prepared, or won't think their decisions through before acting. But with the amount of emphasis that regular gradcafe posters put on 'fit' throughout the process, from long before applications are due and through making decisions on where to attend, I can't help but be bewildered at your puzzlement over whether you are the only one who finds this behavior less than satisfactory: of course you aren't! 

[TakeruK]

When I think "shotgun approach", I think of a person applying to a lot of programs that they know very little about and then hoping some of their applications will stick and get accepted. If this is what you mean, then I agree that it's not the right way (in my opinion) to apply to grad schools. You will waste a lot of time and money on applications!

But, I don't see a lot of that here. As others said, asking for more details is not a bad thing. And neither is applying to something like 8-12 programs. Admissions is both random/stochastic and competitive so except for the few candidates that would be selected at every school, one would want to apply to many schools where they have say....a 20% chance of admittance in order to secure at least one offer. 

Because you need to apply to a lot of schools, you can't do your full research before applying. When deciding what schools to apply to, you are basically just doing enough background work to decide if 1) it's worth the application fee and 2) would you strongly consider attending it if you were accepted. It's not possible to find out enough information to know that "yes I will definitely attend if accepted" because it will take way too much time to learn that. Also, in order to know this, you would want to visit the school, talk to the professors and students and have deeper conversations. And you might want to know the financial offer. All of this is not possible to know prior to getting accepted since most faculty and students are too busy to field every question/request from an applicant. However, once you are a prospective student (i.e. accepted) then it's reasonable to ask all of these things and make these visits.

And finally, most people apply during their final year of undergrad. In my opinion, you basically start developing as a researcher in your 3rd year of undergrad and you will learn and grow a lot during your 4th year. You almost double your experience as an academic between applying and deciding! Also the process of applying and the senior thesis help you learn a lot about yourself as a researcher too. You'll still grow a lot more in grad school, but a new academic may grow so much between applying and deciding that some schools they applied to needs to be seriously re-evaluated.

[puyple]

On 4/1/2016 at 10:37 AM, TakeruK said:

And finally, most people apply during their final year of undergrad. In my opinion, you basically start developing as a researcher in your 3rd year of undergrad and you will learn and grow a lot during your 4th year. You almost double your experience as an academic between applying and deciding! Also the process of applying and the senior thesis help you learn a lot about yourself as a researcher too. You'll still grow a lot more in grad school, but a new academic may grow so much between applying and deciding that some schools they applied to needs to be seriously re-evaluated.

 

I took a year off and applied during that time, but I saw this was true for a lot of my friends that applied as undergrads.  

[cwr]

Just agreeing with @TakeruK regarding applying to a relatively large number of schools. If a student wants to apply to the top programs in their field, it would be foolish to only apply to a couple of them. I applied to a large number of top programs, and while I had done enough research into the programs to exclude some otherwise very good programs on the basis their research programs in my field (e.g. Stanford, Harvard), I didn't anticipate getting into all of my top five choices, so I had a lot of work to do after decisions came out deciding exactly which program was right for me. 

The search before applying for me consisted of essentially asking "is this program strong? are there good, well-regarded faculty here? are they doing the research that I want to do?" while afterward, after being admitted, I could afford to ask much more precise questions "how will I enjoy my time here? what's the culture of the program? do I get along with the faculty/students? how does funding – both my personal support and the group's own money – compare? will I get enough attention/support from my advisor(s)?"

I suppose this isn't exactly what OP was getting at, since after I was admitted I wasn't asking basic questions but very specific ones (as opposed to people asking "is this program good?"), but I definitely understand why someone would need to do additional digging after being admitted to a program, since it makes sense to apply to a large number of schools when shooting for a top program where being admitted is very low probability. 

[Mnera]

Applying to a school 1) costs money 2) requires you to modify your statement of purpose. I decided to apply to as many schools as possible (which turned out to be 14). I spent about 2 hours looking at each of their websites and the research interests of the professors, then I spent 3-5 hours looking into the publications of the professors with whom my interests coincided and I tailored a paragraph of my statement of purpose accordingly.

Clearly this much research is not enough to decide on a school. But would you really want to spend hours comparing schools in your mind, to which you may or may not be accepted? For me, I simply can not consider a school properly until I am actually admitted.

The offer that I will be accepting was from a school that I wouldn't have chosen to apply to if I were to apply to only 5 schools. So I am very glad that I chose to apply to so many schools. I think this investment of time is tiny in the grand scheme of things.