International Student - Future Goals for SOP

[someth1ngAus]

I'm just pre-writing a draft SOP for my application later this year. In an SOP which requires you to talk about your intentions after a PhD:

Does it look bad to say or imply that you intend to continue research back in your home country (Australia)? To me, it sounds like, "I want to suck your resources then take it back to my country to compete against you" but I'm not sure if that's really how it's interpreted.

A major reason why I am going to apply for a program in the US is because there is a serious lack of research in my area of interest (huge area of chemistry) in my home country (Australia) but is extremely common in some (very respectable) institutions, namely Princeton. Is this something I should mention, given the above? It sounds like my intention is to leave and compete against them.

Other reasons include significantly more/better resources (particularly equipment), better location (closer to other strong institutions so better seminar series/better learning), lots of people in my area of interest - allowing more ideas to spawn and more experience to draw from (I'm pretty much self-taught in the area, right now). Hopefully these are good reasons.

[Quickmick]

2 hours ago, someth1ngAus said:

To me, it sounds like, "I want to suck your resources then take it back to my country to compete against you" but I'm not sure if that's really how it's interpreted.
 

I wouldn't think so....maybe couch it more along the lines of, "The work at OverTheRainbow U offers cutting edge blah blah blah, and I would hope to take that training and foster growth along these lines in AU--where developments are not as far along--to advance the study of JandalHandles on the trail that Dr. Suess at Rainbow has blazed."

Just saying, you might be able to spin the lack of work in your home country into a positive.

Edited January 13, 2017 by Quickmick

[fuzzylogician]

I think it's fine, I'd just make it sound less definitive, because let's face it, you don't actually know what will happen five+ years from now. So you might just say something along the lines of what you said -- you hope to pursue a career in academia in [subfield], perhaps retuning to Australia, where [subfield] is underrepresented, to start a new lab and pursue [research]. It's also silly to think that you're competing with anyone. Whoever trains you should be someone who wants you to succeed after you graduate, including getting published, getting grants, etc. If anything, being in another country means you'll be tapping different funding sources and competing less, but again I don't think that's a useful way to think about it in the first place. Tell them what you want, but keep all doors open at this point because you just don't know how things will eventually turn out. 

Edit: but think of this as an academic document. I couldn't help but cringe a little by reading words like "cutting edge" and "trail blazing". Be professional; you don't need to flatter the institution you're applying to. Your submitting an application there is recognition enough that you think they're good.

Edited January 13, 2017 by fuzzylogician

[TakeruK]

5 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:

I think it's fine, I'd just make it sound less definitive, because let's face it, you don't actually know what will happen five+ years from now.

I want to second this. My advice is to just remove all the specifics of location. Say what you hope to do after your PhD, but there is no reason to specify the location. 

I am at a US PhD program because 5 years ago, my home country (Canada) didn't have very many programs in my field at all. I didn't mention this in my application though, instead, I just focussed on the positives of the schools I'm applying to instead of the negatives/reasons for leaving Canada. You don't have to justify moving away from or moving back to Australia at all. 

Finally, if you do have visa interviews etc., then it is totally acceptable (maybe even encouraged) to tell the visa officers about your plans/goals to move back to Australia after your degree (if it's still true). On F-1 and J-1 foreign student status, one of the criteria of the program is to have ties in your home country and that you don't have concrete plans to use this study period as a way to stay in the US forever. Of course, if you end up with an awesome US job offer, you can still take that, but at the moment of entry on F-1 or J-1, you should not already have definite/set plans to stay in the US forever. 

[someth1ngAus]

On 1/14/2017 at 5:58 AM, fuzzylogician said:

It's also silly to think that you're competing with anyone. Whoever trains you should be someone who wants you to succeed after you graduate, including getting published, getting grants, etc. If anything, being in another country means you'll be tapping different funding sources and competing less, but again I don't think that's a useful way to think about it in the first place.

I did not think of that, at all. I think whenever science is discussed in politics, it's viewed as a competition between countries so I had assumed that I would appear like I would try to compete against them in future. I guess it was a bit silly to think that.

I am at a US PhD program because 5 years ago, my home country (Canada) didn't have very many programs in my field at all. I didn't mention this in my application though, instead, I just focussed on the positives of the schools I'm applying to instead of the negatives/reasons for leaving Canada. You don't have to justify moving away from or moving back to Australia at all.

Okay, that's fair - Princeton specifically asks for a range of reasons why I am applying to their program. I think my research goals and lack of opportunities in Australia are an integral part of that.

Edited January 18, 2017 by someth1ngAus

[TakeruK]

8 hours ago, someth1ngAus said:

I did not think of that, at all. I think whenever science is discussed in politics, it's viewed as a competition between countries so I had assumed that I would appear like I would try to compete against them in future. I guess it was a bit silly to think that.

I understand what you mean. When we lobby our governments for science funding though, we do indeed compare ourselves with other countries and we might make statements like, "Canada should support [[telescope]] to allow Canadian astronomers to contribute to the international astronomical community". So you can consider it more like a "friendly" competition where we all encourage each other to be better. But in politics, we may want to spin it in a more competitive way in order to lobby for more funding

[someth1ngAus]

On 1/19/2017 at 3:19 AM, TakeruK said:

I understand what you mean. When we lobby our governments for science funding though, we do indeed compare ourselves with other countries and we might make statements like, "Canada should support [[telescope]] to allow Canadian astronomers to contribute to the international astronomical community". So you can consider it more like a "friendly" competition where we all encourage each other to be better. But in politics, we may want to spin it in a more competitive way in order to lobby for more funding

Yeah, makes a lot of sense now. I think there is some element of competition between countries but within academia itself, the research is more curiosity-driven rather than for a direct economic outcome (which would be industry).

I guess I should just start applying for some external funding to make myself more competitive. Just curious here, international students are fighting uphill - how much external funding would I need to level the playing field? $A40000 for one year like the Fulbright and a few other programs? We have a few major scholarships like $A65000 per year for three years but I'm pretty sure that's enough to make a strong case for admission.

[TakeruK]

2 hours ago, someth1ngAus said:

Yeah, makes a lot of sense now. I think there is some element of competition between countries but within academia itself, the research is more curiosity-driven rather than for a direct economic outcome (which would be industry).

I guess I should just start applying for some external funding to make myself more competitive. Just curious here, international students are fighting uphill - how much external funding would I need to level the playing field? $A40000 for one year like the Fulbright and a few other programs? We have a few major scholarships like $A65000 per year for three years but I'm pretty sure that's enough to make a strong case for admission.

In the United States, an international graduate student could cost something like 70,000 to 100,000 USD per year after including all costs such as your stipend, paying for your benefits, your tuition and the overhead charges that professors have to pay out of their grants. So, any additional money you can bring in is very helpful, but it's unlikely to be able to make you completely "free".

Even so, money is not the only limiting factor in terms of admissions. Another finite resource is time and efforts of a professor to mentor you and to teach classes for you. Schools want to ensure that they have enough resources (time, money and effort) to properly train their students, so being "free" doesn't really help admission. Having extra money though is usually great because 1) there is a correlation in the quality of the student and the ability to win things like the Fulbright and 2) if the extra money reduces the cost for the school, it can make you be considered more like a domestic student. However, at private schools, there is no difference in tuition/costs for an international student vs. a domestic one.

[someth1ngAus]

1 hour ago, TakeruK said:

In the United States, an international graduate student could cost something like 70,000 to 100,000 USD per year after including all costs such as your stipend, paying for your benefits, your tuition and the overhead charges that professors have to pay out of their grants. So, any additional money you can bring in is very helpful, but it's unlikely to be able to make you completely "free".

Even so, money is not the only limiting factor in terms of admissions. Another finite resource is time and efforts of a professor to mentor you and to teach classes for you. Schools want to ensure that they have enough resources (time, money and effort) to properly train their students, so being "free" doesn't really help admission. Having extra money though is usually great because 1) there is a correlation in the quality of the student and the ability to win things like the Fulbright and 2) if the extra money reduces the cost for the school, it can make you be considered more like a domestic student. However, at private schools, there is no difference in tuition/costs for an international student vs. a domestic one.

Yeah, that's a lot of money (more than I expected) - the system we have here is definitely very different because our stipend and tuition usually comes directly from the government (second tier students get stipends from the university) so admission is usually pretty easy. All the institutions I'm applying to are private schools except Cambridge (4 schools total) - I'm currently a grad student in Sydney (same institution as undergrad) but research fit is fairly average so no big loss if I get rejected from everywhere. Acceptance rates are usually a fair bit lower for international students though, even at private schools.

[TakeruK]

8 hours ago, someth1ngAus said:

Yeah, that's a lot of money (more than I expected) - the system we have here is definitely very different because our stipend and tuition usually comes directly from the government (second tier students get stipends from the university) so admission is usually pretty easy. All the institutions I'm applying to are private schools except Cambridge (4 schools total) - I'm currently a grad student in Sydney (same institution as undergrad) but research fit is fairly average so no big loss if I get rejected from everywhere. Acceptance rates are usually a fair bit lower for international students though, even at private schools.

Yeah, Canada is very different too. Overheads are a lot smaller, tuition is a lot lower (even for international students) and stipends are generally lower. The best government PhD grants are about 35k CAD per year (there's one special one that's 50k but it's hard). I think in Canada, a grad student costs something like $30k-$40k total per year, a small fraction of the US system. 

Private schools are a good target for international students with strong backgrounds. At my school, 45% of the graduate students are international!! The on-paper tuition value is currently something 43,000 USD per year. Also, to be honest, most private schools have very little issues with money. They are almost always limited by professor time and energy, not funding. I know that in my department, there were a lot of people interested in one specific professor, so a lot of people that would normally get accepted into the program got rejected this year because that professor doesn't have time to take on more students. This means, as a corollary, some students with weaker profiles than the rejected students still got in because of research interest fit / limited professor time.

Because of the above (it's very hard for a prospective student to know whether a prof is going to be overly popular or not) and because of the highly competitive nature of grad positions in the United States, people will apply to a lot more schools than they might in other countries. In Canada, I applied to something like 3-4 schools. When I applied to the US, it was 7 (+1 in Canada). Many of my friends apply to 10+ schools though.