Guidance on targeting schools and profile

[vaibhavpandey]

Hi there,

I am an aspiring PhD applicant for fall 2018 and planning to put in applications in top schools in US/EU. My areas of interest include Gender studies, collective, culture and management. The main dilemma I am facing is, whether to apply in US universities or European universities including UK. When I look up rankings of development studies programs many UK universities come to top. I am still in dilemma what to do. My research topic is not yet decided but I have interest areas which makes applying to UK universities a bit problematic. I need some advise on how to shortlist the target universities for application. 

My profile: Computer Science grad, Rural development masters (from top institute in India)and 3 years of hardcore development experience based on tribal women collectives. I have no publication. I have average grades throughout, very active in extracurricular and sports. In current job qualitative research tools forms part of daily tasks. I am also capable of conducting quantitative research and can program models in various programming languages. I can get good LoRs as well as writing sample from masters projects. 

I would appreciate a frank response on how my profile looks and what message it conveys to people who want to make some sense out of it. Any tips for improvement will be a big plus. 

 

 

[rising_star]

Why not apply to schools in the UK, US, and EU, rather than applying to one country/region only?

[vaibhavpandey]

There are pros and cons to application in EU/UK and US.

The major pro of US universities is that they do not require detailed research proposal while in UK top schools demand for detailed proposal (as mentioned on their website). Also the duration in UK for a PhD is a little less imho. Pro of UK universities is that most of them do not require GRE. Only English proficiency is required.

To answer above questions, honestly I would have loved to apply to as many schools as possible but I have financial constraint to look after, I have to pay all of the fee from my earned money. That is why I am concerned about choosing schools. If somebody can throw some light on how social PhD programs differs in US and UK, that would be really helpful. For example if UK is better for development studies PhD then I pace up my work on preparing my research proposal.

[hj2012]

5 hours ago, vaibhavpandey said:

There are pros and cons to application in EU/UK and US.

The major pro of US universities is that they do not require detailed research proposal while in UK top schools demand for detailed proposal (as mentioned on their website). Also the duration in UK for a PhD is a little less imho. Pro of UK universities is that most of them do not require GRE. Only English proficiency is required.

To answer above questions, honestly I would have loved to apply to as many schools as possible but I have financial constraint to look after, I have to pay all of the fee from my earned money. That is why I am concerned about choosing schools. If somebody can throw some light on how social PhD programs differs in US and UK, that would be really helpful. For example if UK is better for development studies PhD then I pace up my work on preparing my research proposal.

I think you might be going about this the wrong way. Instead of thinking about the US vs the UK, I'd spend more time thinking about your research interests and what exactly you'd like to study. While US-based PhD programs don't necessarily require a detailed research proposal, you are still going to need a coherent project - and a trajectory explaining why you're the best person to do this project - in order to be competitive. Once you have a sense of your project, and who your potential mentors/advisors might be, it might become clearer where you should be located, and why.

This is also because it's pretty hard to generalize if the US or the UK is better in any said field, since it'll depend on your specific research project and career goals. Going to a top UK university might be better than a relatively unknown US institution, and vice versa. It's also worth thinking about other constraints - for example, if you aren't going to take the GRE or you're interested in living in UK or Europe, it makes more sense to focus there.

 

[vaibhavpandey]

I think you are spot on here, as far as deciding my interests goes, they are very much done and I have prepared potential areas (with potential research questions) which interests me. I am yet to find potential supervisors, I am reading some papers of related subjects then from thereon I am trying to find out best professors in the area eventually leading to the universities of their education and current work (Suggested by some fellow grad in the cafe forum). Thanks for advise, it helped because handling both in one admission cycle could be very hectic and stressing. As far as I can understand from preparing the things to do is:-

1. Find out research interests/Areas, clear understanding and coherent SoP.

2. Explore potential supervisors and shortlisting of Schools.

3. Prepare for GRE/TOEFL alongside.

After that rest depends on GRE Score. 

[ExponentialDecay]

A major con of UK universities is that they don't guarantee funding.

[hj2012]

On 4/22/2017 at 3:39 AM, vaibhavpandey said:

I think you are spot on here, as far as deciding my interests goes, they are very much done and I have prepared potential areas (with potential research questions) which interests me. I am yet to find potential supervisors, I am reading some papers of related subjects then from thereon I am trying to find out best professors in the area eventually leading to the universities of their education and current work (Suggested by some fellow grad in the cafe forum). Thanks for advise, it helped because handling both in one admission cycle could be very hectic and stressing. As far as I can understand from preparing the things to do is:-

1. Find out research interests/Areas, clear understanding and coherent SoP.

2. Explore potential supervisors and shortlisting of Schools.

3. Prepare for GRE/TOEFL alongside.

After that rest depends on GRE Score. 

Totally, the admission process can be really challenging! You mentioned in the original post that you didn't have a research topic yet, so that was what I was basing my advice on. I think your method of reading papers related to your areas of interest and see who's publishing in that arena is a good way to go. Depending on your theoretical/methodological commitments, you might also check out sociology and geography programs as well.

[nevermind]

On 4/24/2017 at 2:21 PM, hj2012 said:

Totally, the admission process can be really challenging! You mentioned in the original post that you didn't have a research topic yet, so that was what I was basing my advice on. I think your method of reading papers related to your areas of interest and see who's publishing in that arena is a good way to go. Depending on your theoretical/methodological commitments, you might also check out sociology and geography programs as well.

 

 

I would agree with this. I have a graduate degree in international development, so I think human geography / sociology would really be a stronger match than history (unless you can make a case for choosing history as a methodology...). I would recommend checking out Cornell's Development Sociology program - it's highly interdisciplinary and Shelley Feldman's work (http://www.atkinson.cornell.edu/about/people/fellows/view.php?NetID=rf12) might appeal to you.

Edited April 28, 2017 by nevermind

[vaibhavpandey]

On 4/25/2017 at 2:51 AM, hj2012 said:

Totally, the admission process can be really challenging! You mentioned in the original post that you didn't have a research topic yet, so that was what I was basing my advice on. I think your method of reading papers related to your areas of interest and see who's publishing in that arena is a good way to go. Depending on your theoretical/methodological commitments, you might also check out sociology and geography programs as well.

Sociology interests me but I would like to get involved in diverse research which has Org behavior, gender studies as well as management as key components. 

On 4/29/2017 at 1:09 AM, nevermind said:

I would agree with this. I have a graduate degree in international development, so I think human geography / sociology would really be a stronger match than history (unless you can make a case for choosing history as a methodology...). I would recommend checking out Cornell's Development Sociology program - it's highly interdisciplinary and Shelley Feldman's work (http://www.atkinson.cornell.edu/about/people/fellows/view.php?NetID=rf12) might appeal to you.

Thanks for Advise nevermind, Prof. Shelly's areas of interest are very appealing. Will explore more about her.

Thank you so much.

[Ar_Hn]

One point that the applicants usually miss out is when comparing the American and European / UK grad schools, is the acceptance rate and the competitiveness of the program. This, of course, shouldn't be too important if you spread out your choices across the spectrum of competitiveness appropriately, unless you really want a name that stands out on your resume.

Getting into the American graduate schools seems to be much more difficult and highly competitive. You can find the admission stats of Cambridge for Master's programs here , and for the University of Michigan here. Of course in reputation, Cambridge is considered top 5 in the world, while Michigan is top 25, but the admission rate for masters programs at Michigan is much lower than Cambridge. (The Cam stats doesn't include Ph.D. degrees, but I doubt if that'd be still more competitive than Michigan as long as you have a decent research proposal).

In fact, these numbers don't even fully reflect the difference in competitiveness, because they aren't demonstrative of the strength of the applicants. I've studied undergrad at both UK and US, and the schools I've studied at were almost equivalent in terms of national ranking (but the global ranking of the American one was a bit better), and I've had friends studying at Cambridge. An average undergrad student in a 2nd-tier (if you consider the top-tier to be world's top 15) school has a much more impressive CV, and academic maturity than an undergrad at a 2nd-tier uni (or maybe even top-tier, i.e. Oxbridge) in the UK. For example, a large percentage of American undergrads (at least those interested in research and academia) have substantial research experience and the vast majority do a couple of summer internships (and some even longer internships), while such a thing in the UK (at least at a non-{Oxbridge and Imperial} school) is really rare. That being said, a US undergrad could be a bit short in the depth of knowledge and information in their field of study than a UK one, if they take too many "breadth" courses, but that totally depends on the individual students and I can't comment on the average or norm. 

All of that means the acceptance in Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc. seems to be way more difficult than Oxbridge, but if you don't care about names, that shouldn't matter to you, because you could have better achievements if you are around stronger classmates and in a more challenging environment, and in fact for PhD all that matters in the quality of your study is the group you are working with, and the resources you have access to. 

( + disclaimer: I am a physical sciences student, so all that I said might be totally wrong about other fields, but it seems to me that the differences are more general and come from the system and culture, and not specific to a department or field. But I could be wrong..)

Edited October 8, 2017 by Ar_Hn