Reapplying PhD programs after quitting the current one

[Rigenate]

Hello Everyone:

         When I joined my previous group, I was not aware of that my adviser only focuses on training and writing books. Basically, our group did not do any

research. My adviser only cares about writing training materials and books to teach people how to use software. All we do is to take a lot of screenshots

for the training....  When my adviser recruited me, he only mentioned our group has industrial projects. He did not mention actually they are "training" projects

not research projects. After staying a year, I had enough and decided to quit my current program. 

       Before I joined my currently PhD program, I already acquired a master of science degree and published 5 papers. Last year in the U.S, I spent

most of my time only on teaching (as a TA) and writing training materials.  I really want to do normal research or industrial projects like I used to do, so I quit my

current program and plan to re-apply a different one again. (Actually, my colleague in my group also quits.)

       How do I convince the admission committee that I will be successful in their program? Should I speak out the truth in my SOP? Do I still stand a chance in

re-applying different programs? 

      It's a very difficult for me to quit... But, I really don't want to do any of the work for the training.

     Thank you!

 

[fuzzylogician]

I would not go into details. I would definitely not say three times that you don't want to work on training or imply that your advisor deceived you (like you did in the post here).* Instead you can just say that once you joined the group you discovered that the direction it was taking did not fit with your research interests, and as a result you chose to leave it and reapply to a program that could better support your research. 

This said, it would be very helpful if you could get a positive letter from your current advisor that would repeat a version of this story -- that you were doing a fine job in the lab and have potential to be a successful researcher, but your interests just don't fit well with the direction of the group. If not a letter from your advisor, if you can get a letter from someone else at your current school saying basically that, it would still be helpful. Not having any letter from your current school would be a red flag in your application. 

* Same goes for any in-person interactions. It's better to stay positive; people don't appreciate students who say bad things about former programs of theirs. 

[Rigenate]

Really thank you for your reply! You are very helpful! It is too bad that my adviser won't provide me a good letters. I think I can get one or two possible good letters from my TA supervisor and engineering mathematics instructor. Thank you again!

[compscian]

@Rigenate Just curious, why not just change research groups? Are there really no one in your current school who does the type of work you like, or is there some other program in your current school which fits well with your interests? I know of many students who internally changed programs e.g. from Physics to EE, Math to CS, Math to Economics etc. In most of these cases, the research interests of student changed, they talked to an adviser who matches their interest (and about half the times, they will be outside their current department), and started working on a fresh project.