Binghamton SUNY vs UC RIverside (Political Science PhD)

[dumbunny]

Also wait-listed with Rice.

Binghamton
Pros: more money + lower cost of living. Emphasizes quantitative methodologies, which I'm interested in. Lots of faculty look like good match on paper.
Cons: professors I met in person didn't see any overlap in research interests. No reply from faculty I've contacted since. Mexican food is terrible.

Riverside
Pros: some faculty saw common ground in terms of research interests.
Cons: faculty all over the place methodologically. Much tougher to budget. Closer to family.

The two programs are similarly ranked, so no clear winner there. Overall, I think Binghamton makes a lot more sense on paper, but I don't really feel wanted there compared to Riverside.

I'm also wait-listed at Rice, and the program director there tells me that they haven't heard back from most of their prospective cohort yet. Not sure how long I ought to wait to see if/what they offer.

[dagnabbit]

Have you scrutinized both programs' placement records? It's probably a good idea to attend the program that you believe will best prepare you for your desired career path, and graduate placement is a good measure of that. If you don't have guaranteed funding, I would advise you not to attend.

That said, I would encourage you to wait until the very last minute to see whether you'll be accepted off of the waitlist, as Rice is a significantly better program than either of your current offers and would be your best option. I've also heard that their funding packages are generous.

[dumbunny]

32 minutes ago, dagnabbit said:

Have you scrutinized both programs' placement records? It's probably a good idea to attend the program that you believe will best prepare you for your desired career path, and graduate placement is a good measure of that. If you don't have guaranteed funding, I would advise you not to attend.

That said, I would encourage you to wait until the very last minute to see whether you'll be accepted off of the waitlist, as Rice is a significantly better program than either of your current offers and would be your best option. I've also heard that their funding packages are generous.

Thank you. I'm hoping it's not considered an unwritten rule to avoid doing that, but you're right about Rice looking much better on paper. My biggest concern about Rice is that I haven't had much contact with the faculty yet. It's really important to me that I go to a program where I could see a few faculty as strong advisor candidates - and visiting Binghamton & Riverside in person totally flipped my impressions of my prospects in either department upside down.

I have guaranteed funding from Binghamton & RIverside. Placement records look pretty similar - mostly liberal arts colleges, with the occasional post doc fellowship or decent-looking research university placement here & there.

[dagnabbit]

I think that it's absolutely fine to wait until the deadline to notify programs, especially because so much of the waitlist movement happens within days of the 15th (I believe there was a poster a couple years back who was accepted off of the UNC waitlist on the 15th, actually). I understand your concerns about faculty contact at Rice, but I imagine that there must be at least a few people that you would be interested in working with if you applied in the first place. If you do get in, you should strongly consider attending - the resources that will be available to you at Rice (higher stipend, more funding for conferences/etc) plus the overall strength of the program vs. your current options will almost certainly lead to better career outcomes. 

It seems like Binghamton is the better option out of the current two, but as you said, they are similar enough that you should choose the department that you feel you will be most successful in. However, if you would need to take out loans to live in Riverside (even with full funding), you shouldn't go. The job market is too tough to justify going into debt for a PhD.

[dumbunny]

Rice's faculty look like a great fit for me. The thing is, I thought the same thing about Binghamton too!

Your response brings up a couple good points. One - Binghamton sends students to UMich's ICPSR summer program. Two - I'm guaranteed an additional $1000/year budget for attending conferences. Riverside sends students to conferences of course, but I couldn't get any information on program support to do so. Seems like Binghamton offers a lot more networking opportunities. Riverside faculty does say you can take outside stats courses, but the circumstances & approval process seemed fairly convoluted.

I'm leaning towards saying no to Riverside as a courtesy to the students on their waitlist, while waiting to hear back from Rice. If nothing happens with Rice, I'm ok with trusting the Binghamton department's judgment in admitting me as a good fit for their faculty. Either it pans out or it doesn't. If not, maybe I can get my quant training, finish my master's and try leveraging that into admission elsewhere...am I crazy?

Edited March 31, 2017 by dumbunny

[dagnabbit]

Wow, 1k/yr for conferencing is really generous. It sounds like there's nothing that could convince you to go to UCR at this point, so you may as well decline the offer.

As a final thought, I would caution you against going to Binghamton (or anywhere else) with the expectation of being able to transfer up the food chain. It does occasionally happen, but from what I've seen and heard there are really only two situations in which it can happen:
1. Your advisor gets a job at a higher-ranked program and negotiates an agreement that lets them bring their students with them

2. You were drastically "underplaced" in your current program, and your advisor realizes this and helps you transfer somewhere better. Maybe you self-selected by only applying to programs below a certain rank, or your GRE scores weren't indicative of your analytical abilities, et cetera. Still, unless the gap between the current and potential outcomes is drastic (you're currently at Wayne State and your advisor knows you could get into, say, UVA), it usually doesn't make much sense to reapply/relocate/start over.

 

[dumbunny]

...definitely spoke too soon.

I just had a chance to talk with one of the Riverside professors who wasn't in his office on the recruitment day (he was teaching a class). The encounter went very well - academically/research-wise I'd say I got more out of 14 minutes on the phone with this dude than I did from this entire process with Binghamton. The Riverside prof is a methodological and topical match for what I want to do; he even pointed out areas in which the literature I'm familiar with is somewhat dated and has been improved upon by later research. He came across as the kind of mentor who can encourage you and push you to be better at the same time, and he's not the only one.

And this keeps happening every time I interact with the Riverside faculty - that department is so much more helpful and so much more responsive, it makes me wonder what I'm even doing considering an offer from another department where only the director has projected any trace of "give-a-damn." Then I worry about the $$$, which is the one thing keeping Binghamton's offer out in front at the moment.

Guess I'll talk with Riverside's program director to see if there's any wiggle room on funding. If Riverside can make y1 match the subsequent years of their own offer, and if the BInghamton faculty keep on not getting back to me, then I feel really good about telling Binghamton "no" while waiting to hear from Rice. If that scenario doesn't unfold, however, and I don't get in to Rice, then I feel like I might as well just flip a damn coin!

Worst case scenario, an asteroid strikes the planet and we all die, right?

Edited April 3, 2017 by dumbunny

[dagnabbit]

Good mentorship is really important, and you will certainly do better work if you are happy. That said, think long and hard about career outcomes before making your decision. Grad school is 5-6 years, but your career is potentially 40+ years - choosing a program based largely on friendliness of faculty seems a bit shortsighted.

[dumbunny]

Friendliness isn't really a factor at all - plenty of faculty at either department have been totally congenial. For me, it's a matter of finding somebody for whom my research interests align with, or are a direct extension of, the faculty's work and/or expertise. I've done a lot of digging through professors' research to scope out possibilities, so it's not like I'm picking people at random. However, In my ignorance as somebody with just a bachelor's degree, if I pick out somebody who's been teaching and researching in my field longer than I've been alive and they say that what they do doesn't align with what I'm looking for, I need to respect that.

When I talk about somebody being "enthusiastic" about what I want to do, what I'm saying is that they've expressed an academic interest or are academically engaged in the kinds of questions that interest me. If they're unenthusiastic, it's something they don't work with and don't sound comfortable advising on. I don't want that kind of advisor.

Edited April 7, 2017 by dumbunny

[dumbunny]

Well, I heard back 4/11 from Rice (no) and 4/12 from Pittsburgh (no). On the 12th, I accepted Riverside's offer over Binghamton's based on Riverside having more comparative faculty specializing in countries outside of Europe. There are certainly enough faculty at UCR who still study European politics, but (a) I don't want to confine myself to working/studying only under experts on one part of the world, and (b) I want to research presidential systems & institutions, but Europe is much more fertile ground for researching parliamentary systems.