Couples applying to school together...

[anon315]

Hello. My boyfriend and I have applied to graduate school together for the Fall 2010 school year. I am applying for an engineering program and he is applying for mathematics. Because we are hoping to go to graduate school together, we each applied to the same 10 schools. Within the past couple of weeks, we each have heard back from a few departments, however, unfortunately none of the departments we have been accepted to have been from the same school.

Thus, I was wondering if anyone had any advice as to what is the most we can do in order to try and get in to a school together?

What I mean by that is, should we each contact our respective departments and tell them of our situation? Would those departments possibly contact the other department of the school of the person that hasn't been accepted yet and urge them to accept if possible?

Or... should we just e-mail the departments we have not been accepted to yet and tell them of our situation?

[qberta]

i'm in a similar situation. my partner is applying in a small field & only applied to 2 of the 3 total programs in the U.S. I picked schools to apply to in the same general location, but it was a bit of a challenge to make them match up.

i'd wait to let any departments know where you haven't been admitted. i mean, there's a reason you didn't put it in your personal statements--because it would seem kind of odd & unprofessional. it seems like a different story to let a dept. know where you've been admitted, that your decision will partially depend on where your boyfriend gets in as well.

are there any places out of your current admits that would give you two a reasonable commute? in my case, we might end up with a two-hour commute between our schools, where i'd get an apt. share during the week in a different city & come down for the weekends (hopefully i can work it for at least 3-day weekends, but maybe that's more likely in the social sciences & humanities). not ideal, but also not impossible for a few years.

[Anthrovape]

That's a tough spot to be in- my wife and I are in the middle of that right now too- sort of. Last year, we tried to get into the same schools. She applied for religious studies, and I applied to Philosophy programs. She got into Rice- one of her top choices- and I was waitlisted there. I ultimately did not get in. I don't think it helped much for me to tell the philosophy dept that my wife already got accepted to Rice. In retrospect, it may have been counterproductive. They were probably more hesitant to let me in because they may have felt like they only did it because my wife was there, and not because I was a good candidate on my own merits. Now we are considering the possibility of going to school in seperate places for a while.

Be ready for that possibility. If you both want to get an advanced degree and things don't work out in terms of going to the same school, you can increase your options by going to seperate schools. It's not ideal by any means, but more people do it than you would think. Overall though, I would advise against mentioning the fact that your significant other has also applied. You want to stand on your own as a good applicant, rather than potentially introducing an element of emotional manipulation to the admissions commitee.

It's not going to be easy. If you're really lucky, maybe you can go to the same school. If not, be ready to live in seperate places, or have one person wait.

[luar de ouro]

It probably doesn't make you look too good to turn a perfectly sound application into some sort of charity case for the adcomm. Even if you're appealing to their human side, their job dictates that they use their objective judgment...so I would say that you should keep your situation to yourself and hope for the best.

Best of luck!

[lemur]

Thus, I was wondering if anyone had any advice as to what is the most we can do in order to try and get in to a school together?

I would think the most you can do is to apply to schools where you both fall into the "obvious admit" pile.

[strokeofmidnight]

I mentioned this in another thread, but you can try applying in different years. Once he (or you) is settled in a PhD program, the other person would have a better sense of which programs might work.

[liszt85]

My professor is interested in a girl who has applied to our lab. She is applying along with her boyfriend and he is applying to a different department (but a related one). My professor offered him partial funding in addition to offering her funding just to attract them here! They made it clear that they would attend only if they were accepted together.. (well, they hinted it and it was clear). So once you are accepted, you may consider telling your respective departments that there is this caveat. If they find you really attractive to the program, they will communicate this to the other department. (This happened here and the guy got an acceptance from the other department, which is slightly more selective than this!).

There is no guarantee it will work.. but it tends to have an effect. So consider giving the professors a hint about it..be subtle but make it clear that its going to be a huge factor in your decision.

[katie katie katie]

My SO and I applied, and in our personal statements, we basically said that we are getting married and we will give preference to schools that accepts us both. (We just applied Fall '09) So we don't know if it's working yet. I have gotten many admits (8 applied, 5 admit, 1 visit and we'll talk, 1 reject, 1 not making decisions yet), and there are so far no admits for both of us, but no rejections either. So it's a really scary time right now, but hopefully something will work out. There's also risk in that we are applying to the same programs, which admit ~10-15 people per year

I realize it's a risky move. Any thoughts on what alternatives exist at this point (since we have a number of admits that are one-sided) to both going to school? I am definitely going to grad school, but what could he do as an alternative if this gamble does not work out?

PS, we applied to comp sci phd programs

[Killy Jelly]

Best not to involve the staff of the schools you are applying to in your attempt to get accepted on basis of your relationship... Like another user said, this may even be counter-productive.

I am in a very similar situation--except I'm going for a Masters in English and my boyfriend is going for a PhD in Sociology. Because of the immense specificity of his degree (Worlds Systems Analysis) we only applied to three schools together. He's already been admitted to his top two choices, but Masters acceptances don't seem to be coming out of those schools yet and I have my doubts. In the end, if I don't get accepted, I'm just going to have to gather my wits and try again next year.

Being in a relationship always complicates things, and you may have to make a compromise here.

But until it comes to that, try to stay positive and hope that a school will match up for you. Even if it is not your first choice, it may be best for you in the long run as a couple.

[socialcomm]

It probably doesn't make you look too good to turn a perfectly sound application into some sort of charity case for the adcomm. Even if you're appealing to their human side, their job dictates that they use their objective judgment...so I would say that you should keep your situation to yourself and hope for the best.

Best of luck!

I agree with this. You'd really be taking a gamble that they wouldn't see this as inappropriate.