Grad School Applications... not much better!

Parents Forum
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<p>Superwizard - thank you for your insight. Do you also suggest to apply to “lower level” schools as well. (not talking about the Law thing now - my DS in into Chemistry). He is going to apply to a couple of the top 5, but I’m also suggesting to him to look at ones ranked 20-50. </p>

<p>I have also read that most times kids do not go to the same grad school as undergrad - why would employers or academia look poorly on that if the kid is excelling and had really found their niche in their undergrad school?</p>

<p>Para - Good luck. I wish your son the best.</p>

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<p>*I have also read that most times kids do not go to the same grad school as undergrad - why would employers or academia look poorly on that if the kid is excelling and had really found their niche in their undergrad school?</p>

<p>*</p>

<p>From what I gathered (and I could be wrong), one of the reasons a student should go elsewhere for grad school is to expand their exposure to faculty and their strengths. When you attend the same undergrad/grad school, you’re often going to have the same profs in many cases. By attending another school, you’re getting taught by other profs who have strengths in areas that were not emphasized at your undergrad.</p>

<p>Do you also suggest to apply to “lower level” schools as well</p>

<p>Absolutely. There are schools that have programs that aren’t yet highly ranked, but they’re “working on it”. Those can be “up and comers”. Also look at some schools that are highly ranked overall, but not so highly ranked in that discipline…those schools often have money and are looking to further develop their programs. </p>

<p>Apply to some of the schools where your profs were educated. That will be a big help when your profs write LORs to the schools that THEY attended themselves.</p>

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<p>Para, I work at a non-profit and we have attorneys working here who make a good living and after working here for a few years (10) I believe, their student loan is significantly reduced or forgiven. This is the link one of the gave me [FinAid</a> | Loans | Loan Forgiveness](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Loan Forgiveness - Finaid) scroll down to the law section. Perhaps one of those programs will be of some help.</p>

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<p>Our ds is ambivalent about grad school after living the good life of a successful working professional in NYC for the past couple of years. His field requires it to move up, especially coming from a prestige ug but he just doesn’t want the life of a poor ft student again and the top pt programs are long and hard. His company will supplement cost but still he’s having a hard time getting excited about the commitment and taking out the loans for the unsubsidized half. I’m advising to look afar. He likes the field butit. Does require the advanced knowledge and quant skills the the ms or MBA programs require. Any other parents can relate.</p>

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<p>flyaround–
If he worked two more years could he save enough to not have to take out loans? He might be more certain in two years what he really wants to do. It would moderate “the good life” somewhat if he’s having to save during that period.</p>

<p>That’s one perspective anyway.</p>

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<p>superwizard, S will be going to one of t-14 schools for sure, the question at this point is how to choose between them. :slight_smile: He is waiting for a couple more decisions, so his mind is not made up entirely. He never had to deal with the pressures to measure up, to not feel like a failure, or anything of this kind. By junior year in college he knew he will be going to law school, because he was interested in everything about law and its connection to politics and economics. He took 2 years off to work but his intentions never changed. He applied to 13 schools,a good mix of reaches, matches and safeties and have for now 10 to choose from. I gave him Scott Turow’s One L for Christmas and he asked for Getting to Maybe, an advice book about law school exams(to read this summer). :-)</p>

<p>HurricaneMom, thank you for the link, the more information to pass on to S, the better. :slight_smile:
His top choice schools have very good loan repayment programs, so we will be hoping that S will not have to wait tables as a second job. :-)</p>

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<p>kleibo,</p>

<p>I would definitely encourage applying to some not so highly ranked schools if he does not possess near perfect grades from a very top institution. So if he’s got a 4.0 from a school like Caltech and he’s top of his class and has done years of research and published in good journals then he might not have to worry too much. I have a friend like that who applied to the top 5 programs in his field and got into all of them. </p>

<p>If he doesn’t possess all those ridiculous stats (very few people do) then applying to some lower down the list is also a smart move. I have a friend who had a 3.8 GPA from Stanford, tons of research experience and overall good letters of rec who applied to chemistry programs. He applied to schools in the top 10 and then also a couple ranked in the mid 20’s. When decisions came he was rejected by all but one of his top 10 schools and accepted to the ones in the mid 20’s. He was waitlisted by the last top 10 school. He was extremely lucky because he got off of his waitlist and is now happy in a great program but imagine what would have happened if he hadn’t. It didn’t occur to him to spread out his applications. Please don’t let your son do that. </p>

<p>Also a note about rankings: always take US News with a grain of salt. The way they rank departments is often just based purely on surveys sent out to different chairs of departments and while that gives a decent benchmark it is by no means a perfect system. I’m currently at a program that’s ranked ~10ish and while that may be the case I work for one of the most highly acclaimed professors in chemistry (our school is arguably the best chemistry department in the US). My program is not ranked as highly as it might be because it is an extremely small program and so some chairs from other schools might not know it very well. Yet the teachers in that department are all quite amazing (and almost all of which also are professors in different departments). If I was to go off of rankings I would have gone to another program which was ‘ranked’ higher but at the end of the day it is important to recognize that in graduate school you will be working for a professor. It is not like undergrad where the institution is all that matters. </p>

<p>Also I would suggest before applying to look at the program and see if there is anyone he could envision himself working for. I got accepted to a couple of places where, when I went to visit, I realized had no professors that interested me at all. It was still a nice trip and all but ultimately a waste of money. </p>

<p>As for changing schools, yes it is generally encouraged that you leave to another school. My professor was very particular about that and strongly encouraged me to do so (I just didn’t apply to my undergrad institution). I do know some people who are amazingly smart and who for some reason or the other decided to stay at their institution. In general though, as mom2collegekids said, going to a different program shows that the student has been immersed in different ideas and places. The way research is approached and done differs quite significantly between departments and institutions. </p>

<p>parabella: it’s good to here that S has some good options. While still extremely expensive, it is usually students who go to lower tier law schools that sadly end up in the most horrible of situations. Not that it is necessarily easy for people at top law schools either. It’s just more doable :)</p>

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<p>Superwizard, I think your posts are spot-on, and I’m glad your story had a happy ending!</p>

<p>I especially liked these two comments:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Kleibo, grad school is not like undergrad in that the dept. matters more than the school, and the PI can make or break the experience. Grad school is a job, and remember Superwizard’s comment, that “in graduate school you will be working for a professor.” Your son should be looking to match departments with his interests, e.g., Harvard is tops in OChem, but there may be a better match for your son if his interest is in PChem. (My son was a chem major UG but narrowed his interests over time and applied to grad school in a different discipline though he looked at chem grad programs. He’s now finishing his doctorate at Stanford.) He should also be looking at prospective PIs. When my son applied and during the interviews, he was researching the faculty and their interests. He only applied to two schools because they were the only two he wanted to attend, with the faculty and research he wanted to work with. He interviewed with his future PI, and they hit it off immediately, kind of “kindred souls,” but there were other faculty he would have been very happy working with. It was a little risky because his (eventual) PI/advisor wasn’t tenured; his research group was small, but he was young, enthusiastic, clearly a rising star, and successful at bringing in grant money as well as mentoring high-profile cited publications. The upside for my son is that the relationship has been happy and successful. The downside, over the past four years, is that his PI, now tenured, is a popular choice as mentor and now his research group is huge and his time much more precious than when my son started.</p>

<p>Also, your son’s PI might leave the school. There was a time about halfway through my son’s program when his PI received a fabulous offer from another school. That would have meant some hard choices for my son.</p>

<p>Grad programs in the sciences are competitive because the competition is international, at a level far above UG. Probably half of my son’s cohort are foreign nationals.</p>

<p>I hope your son has applied for at least one of the national competitive fellowships. In chem, he will most probably be required to TA but may not have to if he has funding through a fellowship. (My son’s program doesn’t require grad students to TA.)</p>

<p>Superwizard, I read your comments about Stanford with nodding interest. When my son started, the president’s welcome message, that “we expect you to leave Stanford better than you found it,” weighed heavily on him as did the experience and knowledge of his peers. In time, he found his footing and regained his confidence in his abilities. But it can be intimidating, no doubt. There appears to be much truth in that “paddling duck” metaphor. :)</p>

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<p>It’s been my impression that it’s a fairly small community at the top grad schools, that the profs all know each other. So I always assumed that there was a lot of unofficial phone calls made by the undergrad mentors on behalf of the top UGs to the program of their choice. Also, I thought people generally had a good idea about who they would be working with for their research prior to joining the PhD program. For example, the grad student DS is working with came to this U specifically to work with this prof and I’m sure the ‘arrangements’ were agreed upon prior to the grad student matriculating. An unofficial match so to speak.</p>

<p>However, the story above about the top student being accepted to 5 different programs would not happen under these circumstances. So I guess my assumptions are not correct?</p>

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<p>ihs, that "networking"is what I have heard about as well.</p>

<p>When one of my sons was considering pursuing a phd in middle eastern studies, his professors/mentors at his undergrad made sure to introduce him to some of the top names at the top programs, and they were instrumental in helping him decide where and with whom he might apply to study. Certain professors at other school had already seen his undergrad thesis; in fact, some he had been in contact with where sending him some original source documents. He was aware that a lot of phone calls had been made, and that the professor he wanted to study with had the right opening for him etc…his favorite professor at his undergrad had mentored the person that my son wanted to study with…It didn’t seem to be any kind of underground communication, it was all very above board and open that the professor network had people talking to each other.</p>

<p>My son decided to take a short detour before going on to grad school and is now doing something somewhat related but entirely different (he is too easy to identify so I don’t want to say more) but he knew pretty much where he was going to go almost before he had filled out an official application, and that he would have been fully funded.</p>

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<p>Mudders_Mudder—</p>

<p>Yes the duck syndrome is indeed alive and kicking. I was there for 5 years (during my gap year I decided to get a masters degree so it was hardly a restful year) and my experience taught me that Stanford is a place where really smart people try really hard to do everything. Almost everyone I knew was in multiple groups and organizations outside of their studies. The atmosphere there was to try to do everything and to make use of your time there and so people often ended up paddling like mad. It really becomes harmful when a student doesn’t realize how madly others are paddling and starts thinking that there may be something wrong with them. I’ve seen that happen a few times, sadly. They all eventually realized it and were much better off when they did.</p>

<p>ihs76-
I can only speak of the majors that I know of (those specifically being ChemE and Material Science). In these majors people’s focus and is often malleable and can change quite dramatically. It is rare to have a student that is only interested in one professor and labs are generally not as small as in other majors (like humanities). There are cases where professors will go out of their way to vouch for students but it is often not done unless a student really wants to go somewhere and the professor believes that they would be a great fit. </p>

<p>In fact when I went to visits (I went to a total of 6), in almost every place I went they asked me where else I was considering and tried to convince me that they were a better fit. Only one school didn’t do that and that’s the school I ultimately chose (oh the irony).</p>

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<p>DS received his first rejection letter. He’s taking it much better than I am!</p>

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<p>^^I am so sorry. It is really hard to comprehend how competitive graduate school admissions have become in some fields. It makes undergrad practically look like open admissions. Crossing my fingers for you both!!</p>

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<p>Hurricane mom thanks for this post and I am pulling for your son. My niece is in the second year of a PhD program at U Rochester and it seems to be working out very well. She gets a stipend of 18.5 for expenses and is not required to TA until next year. She did go in with a Masters in a different but related field. My other niece grad from U Penn law a few years ago and was recruited with several excellent offers six figures in NY and Chicago. But the economy is worse now. She works all the time lives but likes it. She lived at home one summer during law school and clerked for a federal judge which may have helped her. My question is if your student just wants a masters degree because it is required in the field for professional employment is that less competitive than a PhD program and does it matter if you stay at the same school and do a BA/Masters in five years?</p>

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<p>“For some students, or for some schools, or for some fields, it means getting a Masters then a PhD. For others, it’s straight to a PhD then a job. For many fields it’s a masters, PhD AND post-doc.”</p>

<p>I think you misread what I wrote, or I didn’t write it clearly. The clear majority of students in my d’s Ph.D. program got masters degrees IN THE SAME (or closely related) field before being admitted - then had to do the masters work again as part of the Ph.D. program.</p>

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<p>It was his dream school, I think that was part of the issue with the rejection. It was also the first response he has heard back from any of his applications, so it was a rough day for him yesterday. I keep telling him it’s a process, and a very subjective one, and to hang in there.</p>

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<p>HurricaneMom,
Sorry about the rejection. No news here, but only 2 of the 5 (1 for 2 programs) places D applied have deadlines that have passed. Another is on 1/15, the others on 2/1, but all have received everything, so it’s still just waiting.</p>

<p>Hoping for better news for your son in the near future.</p>

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<p>D got her first (and maybe only) acceptance today. UIUC SIP. She is also nominated for a fellowship, and will learn the value after paid visit 3/4-3/6. I don’t know where this stands in her small list.</p>

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<p>^^^I guess different fields notify at different times? D1 says the end of January is typically when they are notified of invitations to interview; results are expected at the end of March or so. D has been invited to 2 schools so far to interview. Could not be more different in terms of climate!</p>

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<p>Nrdsb4</p>

<p>When she called this afternoon (from TX, no less) she told me she was really surprised, as she hadn’t thought she would hear anything, whether negative or positive, before February.</p>