Do you choose your safety school or apply again?

[scilai]

Hi guys, do you recommend accepting to your one safety school you got an offer or do you apply again? what are your thoughts on compromising the standards you have or thought you had?

I am in a situation where I rushed to apply out of undergrad and ended up getting 1 solid offer from a place that was my safety. however there are parts of the program which really do appeal to me (which is why I even choose it as a safety). This program is smaller, only taking three this year, is nurturing, alumni have a place in biotech and academia, is in a great location.... Is it worth staying I am in the lab I am in for another year to push another publication out/ work on apps more carefully or should I just take the offer?

[pro Augustis]

This is the sort of question that is, I think, very hard to answer in the abstract: it entirely depends on what your goals are and what school exactly your safety school is. For some people a safety school is ranked 11th in their field rather than 1st; for others, it's 50th. You don't need to tell us that information if you don't want to, obviously, but I would encourage you to think about the merits of your safety school on its own terms rather than in comparison with the program you wanted most. After all, applications are a crap shoot, and applying next year with a stronger application does not guarantee a better result. So, in your position, the questions I would think about are: 1) what kind of job do you want and have people from this school gotten those sorts of positions? 2) what sort of training do you want in grad school and can you get it from this school? Also, remember that choice of school matters a lot, but so does the choice of an individual advisor. A well-respected advisor means a lot. 

[StHoly]

I would go to the safety school. 

[Neist]

31 minutes ago, StHoly said:

I would go to the safety school. 

Same.

There's no guarantee that you'll get into any program next year, even if you improve your application. Take the offer and run!

[Love3]

You have great things to say about the safety school in terms of faculty, placement and location so I would say go for it. Did you receive funding from the school? 

[Catria]

Just go to your safety if it is funded and pays decently enough to live on...

[Oshawott]

You didn't really list any compelling reasons to not consider the safety school.

[rising_star]

I feel like this is a case of "the seaweed is always greener in somebody else's lake". That is, you're seriously willing to trade the known (your safety school that you have nothing negative to say about) for the unknown of another round of admissions where you may not even get into your safety school. Go to the safety school provided you have funding. You can second guess it a year from now if you want.

[johnnycomelately]

To jump in on this conversation, but to change the dynamic a bit, I wonder what a "safety" school for PhD programs even looks like. I've been told by countless advisors/mentors etc., that there is no such thing in grad school, and that getting into any program, whether it is ranked 1st or dead last (according to whatever rating system you give credence to), is never guaranteed. So I guess my question is, why apply to a school/program if you were not absolutely sure you would attend if offered a spot?

Edit: This isn't some sort of critique of the OPs intentions in applying, and I am not looking for them to justify their motives, but am genuinely interested in what others have to say about the idea of "safety schools" at the grad level.   

 

Edited April 14, 2016 by johnnycomelately

[scilai]

Thank you so much for all your input. I decided to accept! And it is fully funded. I had to get over the "grass is greener syndrome" and I am so excited to make the most of my PhD studies. 

[eternallyephemeral]

On 4/14/2016 at 7:27 PM, johnnycomelately said:

To jump in on this conversation, but to change the dynamic a bit, I wonder what a "safety" school for PhD programs even looks like. I've been told by countless advisors/mentors etc., that there is no such thing in grad school, and that getting into any program, whether it is ranked 1st or dead last (according to whatever rating system you give credence to), is never guaranteed. So I guess my question is, why apply to a school/program if you were not absolutely sure you would attend if offered a spot?

Edit: This isn't some sort of critique of the OPs intentions in applying, and I am not looking for them to justify their motives, but am genuinely interested in what others have to say about the idea of "safety schools" at the grad level.   

 

I don't think anything is ever guaranteed, but personally I knew there were two schools I was very likely to get in to (i.e., I was more than competitive compared to their applicant pool and I had a really good fit). I also applied to six other schools, two that I thought were a reasonable stretch (a decent fit, I had a competitive application, but they were more selective than the first two), and lastly I applied to four super competitive schools in the states, some of which get 1,000 applicants a year for something like 20 spots.

So in a sense, the first two were my 'safety schools', not that I wouldn't go to them (I'm going to one of them actually, and I didn't know how terrible the atmosphere was at the other one until I visited), but the schools (and the programs) are ranked much lower than the others, combined with my application and the fit/discussions I had with faculty before applying, made me quite confident that I would get in and I would be able to have that more probable option while I chose some extremely difficult schools.

So just because there's no guarantee of getting into any school, and because admissions rely on fit, doesn't mean you can't have a 'safety school'. I just believe that if your safety school is a bad fit for you, it's not really a safety school because you won't be very likely to get in.

I've heard different things from advisors/mentors, personally. Most of them agreed with my decision to take a chance applying to really difficult schools, but also agreed that the two schools that were my backup were a good pick given how difficult the top schools are.

However, I was always open to going to either 'safety' school, and I didn't have a number one pick until I went through the application process because it's very personal. In fact, the school I'm going to has the most opportunities, the best research fit, and the best placement of graduates in the types of jobs I want later. So in effect, my 'safety' school became the best possible school for me to go to.

 

I don't know if this is accurate, but I see a lot of people trying to just get within the 'average accepted range' or trying to see if they can scrape by into a program with their application. Maybe that's just my perception, but if you're not over and above other competitive applicants, then you can't really be sure that you'll get in at that particular school. Perhaps this is what people mean when they say they're applying to a safety school? Fundamentally, most of us probably have trouble evaluating ourselves compared to other applicants or compared to what the school is looking for.