My program was written comps after 1 year of classes. No exceptions to that. Oral comps scheduled about 1-2 years later when the student/committee felt ready.
Wow even more stuff to worry about. I did not know about the prelims. I did not realize physics was so competitive. S is currently at a conference and hopefully doing some networking in addition to presenting a paper. Fingers crossed.
My program did not have written qualifying exams, but it had a comprehensive oral qualifying exam that came after about 2 years. We had to defend the general topic plus two sub-specialties plus a third sub-specialty from a different subject area (but still within biomedical science). Thus say a genetics major would have to defend general genetics, two narrow sub-specialties of genetics, plus a third related sub-specialty such as say virology or immunology. The committee consisted of 5 examiners who were specialists in the chosen fields of defense.
You got two tries. If you flunked on the second try you were dismissed from the program on that very day. I was never so thrilled and relieved in my life as when I passed my orals on the first try.
S had an interview while at a conference this week, so that is good news. He felt it went well, they discussed his research and he thought the professor tried to sell the school to him.
It’s still so odd to me that he has had 2 rejections and that is all, out of 12-15 applications. I guess he is on the B list for a lot of schools. Do other disciplines work this way?
It does work that way in math. There is a first round of acceptances early on, and more happen later as various programs sort students into places. There isn’t a one-to-one correspondence between students and acceptances, that is, many initial offers from top programs go to the same small group of top applicants. As those students make their decisions, spots open up in the programs they didn’t choose. Not hearing anything may mean you are still in the running.
Daughter just got off a waitlist for a very competitive progam. Posting because I personally was surprised this would happen prior to April 15th.
My daughter (economics) hasn’t made her final decision yet but I think she has notified the schools that accepted her that she knows she won’t attend, and I assume they’ll then contact people from the waiting list, if spots open.
@surfcity, my D emailed one program today she had not heard from. They responded to say that they have sent out 1st and 2nd round offers, and were working on building their waitlist. I wonder if the possible budget cuts are affecting the search somehow in some of the sciences. My D hasnt turned down some programs yet because she wants to make sure funding for offers doesn’t get withdrawn for her current top choice due to federal budget cuts. There is another school on her list that has significant finding for renewable energy in their dept budget that they could lose She has not heard from them, either.
@intparent yes I was wondering if programs were going to be very conservative now about funding. He is looking at Physics programs, in theoretical areas, so I don’t know if funding in those areas is more vulnerable than in other sciences. I have seen lots and lots of rejections listed on the grad cafe site so that also has me nervous. But the interview this week is a bright spot.
Tbh the program I was in needed at least 50 new students a year to staff the TA positions in freshman and o chem labs.
@surfcity My information may be dated but when I was in grad school for physics 25 years ago it was the experimentalsts that had most of the grant money and lab positions to fill. At that time it seemed that you didn’t have to be a top student to get into a doctoral program in physics…the need to fill labs drove that.
There has been a brain drain going on for a number of years of young US PhDs leaving for other countries. My kid hopes to be able to stay but it is always in the back of her mind.
Awardees for 2017 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships Program (GRFP) are already out. 726 are undergraduate seniors.
And here’s hoping it is not the last batch ever given current funding proposals.
I’ve got a gripe about visits. Why would PhD programs admit a kid who expresses interest in specific profs or specialties in a major, flies across the country to visit, emails more than a week ahead to ask to see those profs or specialty areas when visiting (and emails the profs themselves ahead of time about the visit), and gets there to find no opportunity to meet with those profs or students from those areas? My kid prowled the building looking for people to talk to when she got there, too. This happened to my kid 3 times in 5 visits. Those schools shot themselves in the foot as far as getting my kid to choose them.
I’d get it if there was an excuse given – “Prof X is at a conference, and all his grad students are with him.” Or even, “Prof X is not taking new students, but Prof Y in this area is interested in talking with you.” Or if Prof X responded to the email sent in advance, “I am not available to meet, but we could chat by phone or Skype.” They seem to have no real interest in the students they have admitted. It is weird and annoying.
@bucketDad I have come to learn this. (I have learned a whole heckuva a lot the past few months). My S is firmly committed to theoretical topics and has been since HS. If he gets all rejections this year, I will see if he might adjust his focus a bit, since he is definitely interested in academia in some fashion.
@intparent - your daughter is looking at Ph.D. programs in one of the sciences, right? Can you find out approximately what % of the graduate students are internationals at some of the departments or in some of the labs that she is considering and share it? This information actually relates to your question, and I might be able to provide some useful context for students like your daughter to think about when making their decisions.
“emails more than a week ahead to ask to see those profs or specialty areas when visiting (and emails the profs themselves ahead of time about the visit), and gets there to find no opportunity to meet with those profs or students from those areas?”
maybe only 2 weeks notice was not enough time for profs to rearrange their schedules.
Was there no “admitted PhD student” event? That is usually where accepted PhD candidates have a chance to meet current PhD students and profs.
Did your DD visit on her own?
@menloparkmom, these were for the admitted student events. She actually had better luck meeting with the people she wanted to when she visited schools on a day that wasn’t for the admitted student events. And I don’t even care that they can’t arrange their schedules – at least a response to the request would be nice, and a suggestion that they somehow connect at another time. Or linking her up with a student in their lab that she could meet with if the prof isn’t available. It was just mostly crickets and ignored emails/requests. She is an experimentalist, so seeing the labs in her area of interest was important to her. Oh, and in one case, she only got the acceptance less than two weeks before the accepted student visit date.
@al2simon, I don’t know what % of their students are internationals. All of them seem to have some, but I don’t know a place to get that statistic. From what I can tell, one in particular of the 3 had a lot, the others were more mixed. Why do you think it makes a difference? My kid wouldn’t have applied to these programs if she didn’t think these profs were doing research that was interesting to her. She has a lot of undergrad research in the area and has a pretty good idea of what she wants to focus on.
@intparent - I’m sure your daughter applied to programs with professors who were doing good research that was interesting to her. But professors’ reputations are mostly a function of the research they produce and not necessarily how good they are at training and mentoring their graduate students. Some view their graduate students as cannon fodder whose sole job it is to produce research that enhances the professor’s reputation. Your daughter will want to try to figure out who would be the best person to work for and avoid these sorts.
Most graduate programs in some science fields have lots of international students. The top programs will admit who they want from around the world and typically might end up with 40-60% internationals. Outside of these programs, the percentage of internationals tends to be even higher - sometimes even 70-80% or more, and the internationals will mostly be from outside of Western Europe with lots of students from the PRC. The students are motivated to enter doctoral programs as much by the prospect of eventually getting a US green card as they are by doing good research or getting a Ph.D.
The average person does not know this, but the middle and weaker programs are using their ability to get students into the US and support them as their “hook” to get graduate students, not so much the quality of the training they provide.
So, “admitted students” days can be a bit of a farce since that isn’t what is attracting 75% of the students.
Most US students / parents are oblivious to this context, so they don’t understand one of the key reasons why US universities are able to continue “overproducing” Ph.Ds relative to the demand for them.
This is not necessarily a bad thing since it lets lot of talented students into the US. However, it does mean that the students in these programs are more vulnerable to being “cannon fodder” since if their advisor dismisses them they are kicked out of the US. Most professors are nice enough people and don’t abuse this, but some will. They won’t treat their students well or support them well and won’t have a good record at placing them in good positions. If a lab or program is mostly entirely full of international graduate students this can sometimes be a sign that the professors are this sort.