So very confused (Canada vs US PhD SOP)

[bananabear]

Hi everyone. I have no idea who to go to with this question so I am posting it here.

I'm Canadian and applying to both Canadian and US Ph.D. programs in anthropology. 

In the Canadian schools that I'm applying to, the process is that I find a POI to work with and then I apply. After I find a POI to work with the process of applying/getting in is pretty straightforward. This was the same thing I did for my masters (I found a POI, I applied, I got in). 

In America (particularly at Stanford) I'm confused because I haven't gotten a response from POIs that I'm interested in working with (I've only e-mailed 2). Their admin assistant told me that it's not common for people to have POIs before coming to the school... but then how can you write an SOP with a research interest/question in mind without knowing if the POI you're interested in wants to work with you or not?!

Anyway, if I don't hear back, does this mean they don't want a Ph.D. student? Should I not be writing my SOP in a way that is directed toward their kind of research? Also, it says on their website that Ph.D. students work under a committee and not a single advisor. If that is the case, then I assume my research can fall under more than one person's research agenda. Is that correct? 

It just confuses me that I'm supposed to apply to a place without knowing if the POIs I'm interested in working with are taking students or not! Isn't it kind of a waste of their time and mine if I apply without knowing that my POIs are taking on students? 

Sorry...very confused by this method! Someone please help clear things up. 

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by bananabear

[catsareme]

Some universities in the US will post on their faculty webpage list if they are taking graduate students or not. Usually, I'd say apply to schools that have at least 5 POIs that you would be interested in working with. That will leave you with room to spare if some of them are not taking students. I'd say it's on a per person basis of preference for people who email potential PIs BEFORE they submit their application. It is not necessary and really unless you want to be absolutely sure they're taking graduate students to determine if you're going to apply there, I wouldn't worry too much.

If you're worried, once you've applied and are possibly accepted to programs you can email PIs and make your final decision based on if labs you are interested in or not are going to be taking students. But I wouldn't worry about it before apps are due, just apply to programs that have many labs you would be interested in and then mention 2 or 3 of them and the work they are doing in your SOP/Personal statement.

Edited November 16, 2017 by alissac88

[bananabear]

3 minutes ago, alissac88 said:

Some universities in the US will post on their faculty webpage list if they are taking graduate students or not. Usually, I'd say apply to schools that have at least 5 POIs that you would be interested in working with. That will leave you with room to spare if some of them are not taking students. I'd say it's on a per person basis of preference for people who email potential PIs BEFORE they submit your application. It is not necessary and really unless you want to be absolutely sure they're taking graduate students to determine if you're going to apply there, I wouldn't worry too much.

If you're worried, once you've applied and are possibly accepted to programs you can email PIs and make your final decision based on if labs you are interested in or not are going to be taking students. But I wouldn't worry about it before apps are due, just apply to programs that have many labs you would be interested in and then mention 2 or 3 of them and the work they are doing in your SOP/Personal statement.

Thanks so much for the response! At Stanford anthro all their PIs do such diverse work that if I can't work with one of the two that I"m really interested in, then I'm kind of screwed. Their research focuses are all so different that I can't possibly be interested in 5...it'd just be spreading myself too thin.

I guess I won't worry about it too much and will just apply and see what happens. Although it is still weird to me to be writing an SOP with my interests without knowing those PIs are actually taking students. Like taking a shot in the dark for a program that is already very competitive. Gah! 

[catsareme]

1 minute ago, bananabear said:

Thanks so much for the response! At Stanford anthro all their PIs do such diverse work that if I can't work with one of the two that I"m really interested in, then I'm kind of screwed. Their research focuses are all so different that I can't possibly be interested in 5...it'd just be spreading myself too thin.

I guess I won't worry about it too much and will just apply and see what happens. Although it is still weird to me to be writing an SOP with my interests without knowing those PIs are actually taking students. Like taking a shot in the dark for a program that is already very competitive. Gah! 

Yeah I totally understand the stress/anxiety around it! If you have the funds, I'd say still worth applying and if you get accepted, just double checking the PI would be interested in taking you on also.  Good luck!

[TakeruK]

I am in a different field, but as a Canadian applying to US PhD programs (after a Canadian Masters), I was similarly confused! When I emailed US profs, they often told me that the department doesn't admit people directly to a PI the same way as Canada. Instead, the department admits people to the school as a whole and people pick their advisors within the first X months (or years, depending on program). Even if a prof really wanted a student, they might have no control at all over the admissions process. I also found that this is even more true at private schools, where most profs have plenty of funding for students, and a lot of the funding will also come from the department, so the admissions process is a lot less like a job application since it's not the advisors/supervisors making the decisions.

I had 7 US schools on my list and emailed 3 profs at each school. 1/3 of the responses were in-depth and positive, like the ones I received from Canadian profs. 1/3 were just short emails that said basically "apply and we can discuss this after decisions are made" and 1/3 were no response. Like @alissac88 said, in the US system, the discussion to determine who is taking students and what kind of projects are available happens after the student is admitted and when it's your turn to decide where to go. 

I was apprehensive at first, for the same reasons as you. You would write your SOP to speak about a general possible project, rather than a detailed specific dissertation project. Since most US programs admit PhD students directly from undergrad (Masters is a totally different thing), most schools do not expect students to have a thesis plan worked out until their 3rd year or so. The first two years of the US PhD is very similar to a Canadian Masters. So SOPs shouldn't be a thesis proposal (unless your field is different) at all. If you have ever applied for one of the Canadian tri-council awards, I would say the research proposal part of it is kind of like the award application proposal: you aren't bound to do that work at all. Instead, they just want to see whether you can develop a good academic argument for a project and to see where approximately your interests lie.

For reference, in my SOP, I only wrote about my interests in potential PhD research questions and investigation methods and why they interest me. I did not write about any specific project at all. I think this is expected in my field. 

In the end, I changed my mind from thinking that Canadian direct-admit way was better to preferring the US open-admit method. It allows students to explore lots of potential projects and find something that works well for them. It is really good when people enter directly from undergrad since I think undergrad is a great place to be introduced to research but you don't generally get enough experience to really know your field enough to know what you want to do, instead of just what you are familiar with. Even if you have a Masters, it might be annoying to have to repeat some things, but the chance to try new things is great.

In my program, we had to do 2 projects and defend them at the end of the first year (each project defense was very similar to my MSc thesis defense, however, the projects are meant to be proof of concept rather than a complete Masters project). After the first year, most people decide to choose one project/advisor to continue as their main thesis work but it's also possible to decide you didn't like either of them and do something different. I am glad for this chance since during this process I found the right project and advisor for me!

[timetobegin]

I keep running into this problem as well (also applying to PhD in anthropology in Canada)! Most Canadian schools require you to secure a supervisor, but many just ask you to reach out before you apply. Even if you've secured a supervisor, it seems odd to me to tailor your SoP to their very specific research project. Then no one else can take you on as a student, if something falls through with your POI. Even meeting and saying "Yeah we'd work great together!" is not a guarantee of supervision. 

As a result, I'm not sure how specific to make my SoP (which is the only written document you submit!). Half my letter is a very personable statement about my interests, my background, and why I do what I do, but the other half is more...proposal-style, with background theory on my interests, some research questions (that feel quite broad to me), and then a concluding paragraph about faculty that I think I could work with. I haven't included any research project, hypothesis, predictions, methodologies (beyond the general ones I want to use...).

It's odd.

Edited November 19, 2017 by timetobegin

[bananabear]

@TakeruK Thank you so much for sharing all this! This post clears up so many of my questions. I'm glad I'm not the only one to have been confused by this Canada vs US process. I am applying to private schools in the States (due to funding opportunities for int'l students as well as research match) and found myself very confused by the process when the school's graduate advisors just told me to "apply and decide my PI and project once I get in". Anthro departments I'm applying to have that process you're talking about...where we take the first term just to figure out what we like and who our advisors will be.

It still confuses me a bit how admissions committee can look at your SOP/compare it to others and make it the primary tool they use for admissions. Some schools I've spoken to say that the SOP is the single most important thing they look at. But they don't outline what exactly they look for.   Whether they'll have advisors available to supervise you? Or just a good/sound project that is in line with your previous work? Your insights really helped clear some of this up. I'm gonna go edit mine now!

[bananabear]

15 hours ago, timetobegin said:

I keep running into this problem as well (also applying to PhD in anthropology in Canada)! Most Canadian schools require you to secure a supervisor, but many just ask you to reach out before you apply. Even if you've secured a supervisor, it seems odd to me to tailor your SoP to their very specific research project. Then no one else can take you on as a student, if something falls through with your POI. Even meeting and saying "Yeah we'd work great together!" is not a guarantee of supervision. 

As a result, I'm not sure how specific to make my SoP (which is the only written document you submit!). Half my letter is a very personable statement about my interests, my background, and why I do what I do, but the other half is more...proposal-style, with background theory on my interests, some research questions (that feel quite broad to me), and then a concluding paragraph about faculty that I think I could work with. I haven't included any research project, hypothesis, predictions, methodologies (beyond the general ones I want to use...).

It's odd.

2

For Canadian schools, it would help to speak to your POI and ask them what sort of project they'd supervise. Since most large and well-known schools in Canada are public and PIs receive funding from the government, it is all a 'different game' than applying to American private schools where this is not the case. So for example, for my masters, which was sorta competitive (they had 90ish applicants for 5 spots), I learned that all the students who were admitted in my cohort were students who had PIs lined up before applying. I had to contact supervisors before applying and say "are you taking on students and if so, for what sort of projects?" (I wrote this more formally to them, of course). When I applied to my school, I already had a PI and project ready. I had to write about that project in my SOP, but at that point it just seemed like a formality, because I was already told by my PI I could start working on it. I started working on my master's project the summer before my master's program even started. When the program started in the fall, I was taking courses and working for the same PI and the other 4 students in my cohort were working for PIs too.

This process is more or less the same for PhD. The most important thing to getting into many Canadian PhD programs is to have a PI who is willing to take you on board and supervise you. If not that, then you need to demonstrate how you will support yourself (i.e. that you have applied for external grants and will come with funding of your own).  The rest of the "application process" just seems like a formality. I'm so used to this Canadian process that I was VERY CONFUSED and surprised to learn that it doesn't work like this in America.

Anyway, I rambled here a bit, but I hope this sorta helps? 

[GreenEyedTrombonist]

To give a little more targeted advice based on anthropology, our departments tend to have very few people doing the exact same thing (as in, we don't usually have departments full of professors all doing African studies based around gender issues). Anthro can be tricky to match your interests because you often are matching regional interests, topic interests, theory, and methodology (this is one of the downsides of anthro being so broad). Instead, I like to make sure there are many (minimum 3) professors who have done work in my intended sub-subfield (the subfield I research within cultural anth, for instance "digital community") and professors who have similar methodological and theoretical frameworks (digital ethnography for methodology and professors who do think communities can form online for theory, though other theoretical frameworks are more succinctly titled, such as "Marxist" or "post-structuralist"). Given the typical size of an anthro department (fairly small) I think it's ok to have a smaller number of professors who exactly/closely match your interests, but it is good that you can show general interest, theory, or methodology similarities with several members in the program. Since our programs typically have an advisor and two or three committee members, I like to show very strong topic connections to at least one professor and strong methodology or theoretical connections to another two or three. 

There are some good posts in the anthro section that discuss US anthro SoPs and what is typically expected so that would be a good place to check regarding specific differences in how you write your SoP for these programs.

I would like to note that, although my BA and MA are in anthro, my interest in digital studies has moved me to comm programs for doctoral research. I did still research anthro programs for both MA and PhD level applications though, so this advice should still be useful. 

[bananabear]

@GreenEyedTrombonistThank you! Do you mind if I shoot you a PM with a specific question about methodology? I don't want to get too off topic on here.  

Edited November 20, 2017 by bananabear

[GreenEyedTrombonist]

Go for it @bananabear 

[ElySiae]

I am confused about the kind of research proposal that is expected in Canada. Does it have to be more precise than in the US? Also, can you decide to switch your research topic once admitted? Given the length of PhD programs in Canada (in social science at least), I feel that they expect you to have a research project ready when you apply

[TakeruK]

3 hours ago, ElySiae said:

I am confused about the kind of research proposal that is expected in Canada. Does it have to be more precise than in the US? Also, can you decide to switch your research topic once admitted? Given the length of PhD programs in Canada (in social science at least), I feel that they expect you to have a research project ready when you apply

It likely depends a lot on the program you are applying to. In my field, many programs don't actually ask for a "Statement of Purpose" but instead, ask for some other essay with some other prompt that is similar to the US schools' SOP prompt but different enough so you know what to write. One program I applied to did not ask for one single essay but a series of paragraph-length questions instead. There was another program in Canada that was run more like the US system where you don't identify a specific project but you do identify interests so that you would basically be applying to work with a particular faculty member (or one of several faculty members). I pulled up one of my old essays (called a "personal profile document" instead of a SOP for this Canadian school) where I mostly discussed my history. There was one paragraph on what I would want to do at that school and one sentence about a potential project. It was very vague though: something like, "I would use Technique X to study Objects Y". But no mention of a research question in particular, however, it was enough info for the department to know what I might want to do and enough info for faculty members to decide if I would be interested in what they did or not. **

At many Canadian schools, your offer letter will say, you are accepted to work with Prof. X (or Profs. X and Y). Some schools allow Canadian students to have one semester before committing to a supervisor but international students must be admitted directly to a supervisor.  Usually because a TAship alone is enough to pay for a domestic student's tuition but an international student requires some department or advisor specific support.

So, I think if you are applying in Canada and especially if you are not a Canadian citizen, you should reach out to the profs you might want to work with and see what they say about the application procedures in your department. In my field, it's actually quite common for an applicant and faculty member to discuss potential projects and the application itself before you submit.

 

(** Note: This was just my application. I was accepted but I don't know for sure if I did the right thing or not. Maybe I was accepted despite my terrible project paragraph.)

[ElySiae]

Thanks @TakeruK I guess my chances of admission are fairly low for this year's admissions as I am an international student and haven't contacted professors 

 

Any insight from someone in the field of social sciences?