Welcome to the 2016-17 cycle!

[HermioneWannabe]

9 minutes ago, Comparativist said:

Well, it is presumably supposed to be. But it's track record of predicting who will last and who won't is not very good. Of course, I don't think anyone should expect it to be perfect.

It seems the admissions process is fairly reliable for determining especially strength of applicant/student and potential. You can see that every cycle in these threads. There are a handful of applicants every year that do extremely well across the board. Then there are a handful that get rejected from most or all places. It also does an adequate job of sorting students into the tier of programs that they should probably belong to (not perfect by any means though).

But it doesn't seem like a very good indicator for predicting attrition. Attrition rates for most programs - even top ones - are somewhere around 50%. That's extremely high. Now, I don't think attrition rates should be 0% or else your program isn't rigorous enough (and we certainly wouldn't want the potential candidates pool for academic jobs to double which would be a disaster).

But I also see an admissions process that looks for the best students rather than potentially the most promising or committed ones. Large emphases on pedigree, GPA, GRE, ect. that really doesn't indicate a whole lot. 

I did a masters in a program affiliated to a top 25 program and watched attrition closely. Out of a cohort of around 20, 2 or 3 people didn't make it past the first year and a half (one even dropped out after the first semester). Another 2 probably won't even make it to comps. Then a bunch will take the masters and leave. It's crazy how unprepared and unfamiliar these students were with what grad school entails. This is typical across many programs.

That being said, I am sure the admissions process is difficult to do. Lots of applicants and lots of noise in the process.

But I do think there are a few things these programs could do:

1) It's interesting that there is a real lack of an interview process throughout the discipline. Most sciences programs employ them extensively. Even other humanities/social sciences like sociology and history use them quite a bit as well. One way of weeding out those great students that don't really know what they doing/committed is through interviewing them.

2) Smaller cohorts. I really see not reason why some departments have these massive cohorts. Yeah, they need TAs of course, but there are ways of addressing this. The academic market is saturated as it is...and having smaller cohorts that support their students better would make attrition less likely.

3) Political science as a discipline could make masters programs more prevalent and/or used as breeding grounds for developing good candidates for top programs. Other disciplines and countries do this, not sure why political science doesn't. A student who has been through a rigorous masters program is much less likely to not know what they are getting themselves into. 

I agree 100% with the interview idea.  I have a friend who is doing a neuro science phd and his process was a lot harder - he had to get invited to interview at schools, then go through rigorous interviews and THEN he found out if he got in or not.  I think it really helped him pick the best program for him / make sure he really wanted it - on top of helping the programs to decide.  I only interviewed at GWU, and that wasn't even a true interview (it was more like a group conversation with two prospects and one professor).

[dih2]

 

13 minutes ago, Comparativist said:

Well, it is presumably supposed to be. But it's track record of predicting who will last and who won't is not very good. Of course, I don't think anyone should expect it to be perfect.

It seems the admissions process is fairly reliable for determining especially strength of applicant/student and potential. You can see that every cycle in these threads. There are a handful of applicants every year that do extremely well across the board. Then there are a handful that get rejected from most or all places. It also does an adequate job of sorting students into the tier of programs that they should probably belong to (not perfect by any means though).

But it doesn't seem like a very good indicator for predicting attrition. Attrition rates for most programs - even top ones - are somewhere around 50%. That's extremely high. Now, I don't think attrition rates should be 0% or else your program isn't rigorous enough (and we certainly wouldn't want the potential candidates pool for academic jobs to double which would be a disaster).

But I also see an admissions process that looks for the best students rather than potentially the most promising or committed ones. Large emphases on pedigree, GPA, GRE, ect. that really doesn't indicate a whole lot. 

I did a masters in a program affiliated to a top 25 program and watched attrition closely. Out of a cohort of around 20, 2 or 3 people didn't make it past the first year and a half (one even dropped out after the first semester). Another 2 probably won't even make it to comps. Then a bunch will take the masters and leave. It's crazy how unprepared and unfamiliar these students were with what grad school entails. This is typical across many programs.

That being said, I am sure the admissions process is difficult to do. Lots of applicants and lots of noise in the process.

But I do think there are a few things these programs could do:

1) It's interesting that there is a real lack of an interview process throughout the discipline. Most sciences programs employ them extensively. Even other humanities/social sciences like sociology and history use them quite a bit as well. One way of weeding out those great students that don't really know what they doing/committed is through interviewing them.

2) Smaller cohorts. I really see no reason why some departments have these massive cohorts. Yeah, they need TAs of course, but there are ways of addressing this. The academic market is saturated as it is...and having smaller cohorts that support their students better would make attrition less likely.

3) Political science as a discipline could make masters programs more prevalent and/or used as breeding grounds for developing good candidates for top programs. Other disciplines and countries do this, not sure why political science doesn't. A student who has been through a rigorous masters program is much less likely to not know what they are getting themselves into. 

But what's really so wrong with people dropping out? As you say, the job market is super-saturated, and there just aren't jobs for many. Perhaps it isn't so bad that lots of people do a couple years of a PhD, learn quite a bit, maybe get a MA, and drop out to pursue another career path. I'm going in to a PhD knowing full well that I might not get a job in academia. As a result, I'll be looking quite aggressively at alternative professional opportunities.

I don't think though that requiring a MA, for example, would be all that much of an improvement. Many of these programs are unpaid. Does it really make sense to incentivize more folks to pursue them? There the tradeoff becomes much starker. And for every 1 person who successfully finishes an MA and is accepted to a top graduate program, another 1 still doesn't get in, and is left with just more debt. That's of course exaggerated for effect, but I think there's a serious point there. 

Regarding smaller cohorts, I think I largely agree. One worry is that smaller cohorts would encourage universities to cut funding for these departments and for research (which would be terrible). But certainly non-elite elite programs should consider reducing the number of students they take

 

Edited February 27, 2017 by dih2

[VMcJ]

1 hour ago, dih2 said:

But what's really so wrong with people dropping out? As you say, the job market is super-saturated, and there just aren't jobs for many. Perhaps it isn't so bad that lots of people do a couple years of a PhD, learn quite a bit, maybe get a MA, and drop out to pursue another career path. I'm going in to a PhD knowing full well that I might not get a job in academia. As a result, I'll be looking quite aggressively at alternative professional opportunities.

This is a fair point, but not applicable to first-year drop-outs, which was my point before. Screening should be good there -- two or three years after applications is too far into the future to know precisely if someone might drop out or not.

The whole problem of a high drop-out rate is this is a bad way for spending resources. If you spend half of your department's resources for students with people that will not finish their Ph.Ds, that means less resources for everybody: other students, faculty, departmental projects, etc.

[Stadimeter]

2 hours ago, Comparativist said:

Yeah and it's frustrating for people that have been preparing for this for like 4 years and have taken a number of grad courses in a reputable program to have these flimsy students take spots.

Not everyone chooses to remain in school after undergrad to "prepare" for a PhD. Many take challenging or meaningful jobs outside of academia. One could argue that those with diverse experiences, rather than being "flimsy" candidates, actually have as much (or more) to offer to their cohort than someone who has never seen the light of day outside of a college campus.

[VMcJ]

1 hour ago, Comparativist said:

3) Political science as a discipline could make masters programs more prevalent and/or used as breeding grounds for developing good candidates for top programs. Other disciplines and countries do this, not sure why political science doesn't. A student who has been through a rigorous masters program is much less likely to not know what they are getting themselves into. 

That is the case here in Brazil. Almost everybody gets a Master's degree before going to a Ph.D. program, mostly because it is often mandatory, such as you having to finish high school before going to college. An unintended consequence is that Master's degrees eventually seem pointless to many, just an annoyance you have to do before the Ph.D.

[guest56436]

10 minutes ago, Stadimeter said:

Not everyone chooses to remain in school after undergrad to "prepare" for a PhD. Many take challenging or meaningful jobs outside of academia. One could argue that those with diverse experiences, rather than being "flimsy" candidates, actually have as much (or more) to offer to their cohort than someone who has never seen the light of day outside of a college campus.

For the record, I never drew this distinction so I'm not sure why you distorted my comment like that.

Edited February 27, 2017 by Comparativist

[yousowildrach]

Does anyone know what's going on with University of Washington? Still haven't heard from them...

[Wongs]

Political Science or Jackson?

[Wongs]

5 minutes ago, yousowildrach said:

Does anyone know what's going on with University of Washington? Still haven't heard from them...

Political Science or Jackson Institude?

[yousowildrach]

13 minutes ago, Wongs said:

Political Science or Jackson Institude?

Political Science

[Stadimeter]

1 hour ago, Comparativist said:

For the record, I never drew this distinction so I'm not sure why you distorted my comment like that.

No distortion intended. The tone, however, drawing attention to all one's hard work in a "reputable" program, does in fact sound a little resentful and by extension disparaging of others who ostensibly have not spent as much time burnishing their "reputable-ness".... Of course it's probably only my poor reading that gave me that impression, in which case, I apologize for the distortion.

[guest56436]

4 minutes ago, Stadimeter said:

No distortion intended. The tone, however, drawing attention to all one's hard work in a "reputable" program, does in fact sound a little resentful and by extension disparaging of others who ostensibly have not spent as much time burnishing their "reputable-ness".... Of course it's probably only my poor reading that gave me that impression, in which case, I apologize for the distortion.

I was merely trying to portray that it can be frustrating for some applicants who spend a lot of time getting acquainted with graduate work and knowing very well what it entails only to lose out to people that end up dropping out in their first or second years. That's all. Not like it matters, you get admitted or you don't and that's the game. 

[terefere]

4 hours ago, Comparativist said:

3) Political science as a discipline could make masters programs more prevalent and/or used as breeding grounds for developing good candidates for top programs. Other disciplines and countries do this, not sure why political science doesn't. A student who has been through a rigorous masters program is much less likely to not know what they are getting themselves into. 

In my field (political economy) it is already very rare for candidates to be accepted without a Master's degree. It's almost as if a Master's was required, and some exceptions to the rule were being made.

[resDQ]

52 minutes ago, Comparativist said:

I was merely trying to portray that it can be frustrating for some applicants who spend a lot of time getting acquainted with graduate work and knowing very well what it entails only to lose out to people that end up dropping out in their first or second years. That's all. Not like it matters, you get admitted or you don't and that's the game. 

 

4 minutes ago, terefere said:

In my field (political economy) it is already very rare for candidates to be accepted without a Master's degree. It's almost as if a Master's was required, and some exceptions to the rule were being made.

 

I don't have an MA (I have taken numerous MA courses in the stats dept.) and I am not in PE, but I am kind of frustrated by some folks I know that got admitted to a T20 (I've been admitted to a few T10 schools, so I am not saying this out of jealousy). They are very smart, but you can't understand what grad school is all about from taking 1 substantive grad course while taking 2 blow off undergrad courses. 

Who your advisor knows can help you get admitted to some places (provided your file is at least average). Those that got admitted to numerous places had a good file all around (networks, gpa, etc.). That said, sometimes people do get admitted because their advisor is friends with someone and that is the frustrating thing about admissions. Not something that happens often, but it does occur. 

[changeisgood]

2 hours ago, Stadimeter said:

Not everyone chooses to remain in school after undergrad to "prepare" for a PhD. Many take challenging or meaningful jobs outside of academia. One could argue that those with diverse experiences, rather than being "flimsy" candidates, actually have as much (or more) to offer to their cohort than someone who has never seen the light of day outside of a college campus.

*raises hand*

That's my situation.  Being older and having real job experience means that I have different (some would say stronger) motivations to complete a program well and quickly, and get out on the job market, than someone who has time to hang around in grad school wondering if they would really rather be doing something else.  I'm pretty sure I could have completed the program at Michigan or Ohio State, but being out of school for so long, my math skills had degraded to the point where I couldn't get a competitive GRE score so that I had a chance at the top 15.  I can do the work, I'm just not very fast at it.  You don't have to be fast when writing a journal article or a book, in fact it's better if you're not.  That's one way in which the GRE is not a good indicator of success.

[advark]

so when is Harvard coming?

[dih2]

22 minutes ago, advark said:

so when is Harvard coming?

Lol, that's what I want to know 

[guest56436]

22 minutes ago, advark said:

so when is Harvard coming?

Probably sometime this week or next.

[advark]

13 minutes ago, dih2 said:

Lol, that's what I want to know 

 

12 minutes ago, Comparativist said:

Probably sometime this week or next.

 

I want this cycle to be over with. Hope we hear by tomorrow. 

[guest56436]

I vote UNC as the wierdest behavior of this cycle.

[advark]

4 minutes ago, Comparativist said:

I vote UNC as the wierdest behavior of this cycle.

 

I don't get why they drag it out so long. Harvard gets a lot of applicants. There is no way UNC gets the same number of applicants as Harvard. 

[VMcJ]

5 minutes ago, Comparativist said:

I vote UNC as the wierdest behavior of this cycle.

I emailed their Graduate Coordinator last week and she said all applicants would know their final decision in the next weeks. If so, a little bit better than last cycle when they accepted people out of the waitlist after April 15, as someone told us here several days ago.

[VMcJ]

6 minutes ago, advark said:

I don't get why they drag it out so long. Harvard gets a lot of applicants. There is no way UNC gets the same number of applicants as Harvard. 

The point is they probably decided everything already, as they issued a number of acceptances and waitlists a long while ago. Now they are probably just waiting to be sure their waitlist will be enough for the number of enrolls they want.

A lot of "probablys", I know, but that's what I make of all of this.

[advark]

11 minutes ago, VMcJ said:

The point is they probably decided everything already, as they issued a number of acceptances and waitlists a long while ago. Now they are probably just waiting to be sure their waitlist will be enough for the number of enrolls they want.

A lot of "probablys", I know, but that's what I make of all of this.

 

That makes sense. Thanks.

[dih2]

So I guess we are about to find out how good that Harvard intel is!