Test Optional Strategy

[MWolf]

@Mwfan1921

I don’t think that’s the current case. There’s not much of a job market in academia for PhDs. Around 68% of college faculty are contingent (not tenured/not on the tenure track).

It depends on where you did your PhD. The faculty in those 31% of positions which are TT are mostly from a handful of PhD programs. A person with a history degree from Harvard, Yale, U Chicago, and a few other have a very good chance of getting a TT job, while those whose PhD is from 80% of the programs will find it difficult to get anything but a contingent position.

Also, around half of those contingent faculty do not have PhDs. More than 2/3 of part time contingent faculty do not have PhDs.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

Yeah, at a high level, if you are a top PhD student at a top PhD program, with full support from the top professors in your department, in the fields I know about at least, you are still likely to find a tenure-track position. Somewhere. Not necessarily a top department, but somewhere.

The “big problem” is you and your handful of peers are basically taking almost all such positions. And there are many more PhDs.

[Mwfan1921]

@NiceUnparticularMan

Somewhere. Not necessarily a top department, but somewhere.

Exactly. The PhDs looking for TT professor jobs will be limited at any given point to where there is an opening. Might be at U Maine, or Northwestern, or Eckerd, or Catholic University and the competition will be fierce for each and every opening. Don’t particularly want to move to where an opening is? Don’t like the state politics? Don’t like the head of the department? Wait until another opening comes up.

Meanwhile most people have to start earning money if they are a newly minted PhD, or in the case of those who have already been out in the real world, continue in the non-TT instructor job or non-academia position they currently have.

[blossom]

And if your spouse/Significant Other ALSO has a career to consider… perhaps YOUR job opening is in Arkansas… and your spouse, a pediatric neurologist, interviews with the two hospitals within commuting range and dislikes both opportunities…

Then that opportunity at Catholic University-- or indeed- any major metro-- is going to look pretty sweet!

[NiceUnparticularMan]

That right there ended my academic aspirations. In retrospect, it was not right for me anyway. But when I got married to someone who already had started a great professional career, the idea of dragging her to wherever I could get a job (if I could get a job) made no sense to me.

[1dadinNC]

@Shwalee

Many kids went TO but because many are also from upper middle class, wealthier households, they also had strong EAs, varsity sports, volunteer work, etc. (I recognize there is privilege here, so please don’t throw stones).

I am glad you recognize this. Being affluent and being able to pay whatever a snooty (aka selective, but not tippy top) private college will ask for is the greatest advantage an applicant can have.

A more considerate take would be to see how many students that got accepted to need blind schools did not send in test scores.

[hebegebe]

I have created a new thread about tenure track jobs in academia in case the mods want to move any posts there.

The brutal competition for tenure track academic jobs

There were several posts in the Test Optional Strategy thread about how difficult it was to get tenure track academia jobs, and I thought it might be worth its own thread. I have previously described the job struggles of a well-known CC poster who got her undergrad in MIT and then got a PhD at Harvard in 2013 (I won’t reveal her name or CC id). She also had publications in journals like Science, Neuron, and Cell, and was even featured in an episode on NOVA. But after her PhD she ended up doing two post-docs, and held three different roles as adjunct professor. This fall she finally landed a position as an assistant professor at a respected New England LAC. I used her as an example to my kids of just how hard the struggle to a tenure track position can be. Apparently it worked, as neither of my kids showed any interest in getting a PhD. Now onto more recent examples. Before college, my two children were fortunate enough to do three years of research at separate HYPSM colleges. Each on…

[meagan_allen]

Interested in what made you decide to submit scores for Auburn. My D24 is a lot like you in SAT she took 2 times and scored 1120 superscore so we stopped. So we did TO for Auburn.

[sky23]

I read somewhere, I think actually on the common app for Auburn, that said they prefer scores and that not sending them may lead to a rejection. Maybe not in those words, but something in that regard. I figured I would just take my chances with sending them especially since, while I loved the campus and could see myself there, I have other options and won’t be crushed if I don’t get accepted.

[Mwfan1921]

@meagan_allen

Interested in what made you decide to submit scores for Auburn. My D24 is a lot like you in SAT she took 2 times and scored 1120 superscore so we stopped. So we did TO for Auburn.

Auburn is not test optional. One can only apply without a test if they have minimum 3.6 GPA and were unable to test.

Auburn University extended the for first-year students who would start in Fall 2024. Applicants with at least a 3.6 GPA and unable to test will be reviewed holistically through our test-optional pathway.

Undergraduate Admissions | Office of Undergraduate Admissions

Less than 9% of last year’s EA admits were from the TO pathway. Auburn receives record number of applicants for fall 2023

[meagan_allen]

Wow! You are right. We did common app and it simply just asked if we wanted to include scores. I just went back to look at my daughters app and it said - Test- optional and ask if you want to include scores. So that can be very misleading. I can honestly say we never went and looked at all of the information on the Auburn website we just trusted common app. Not saying that was what we should have done. But thats what we did. I guess next week will tell us if that affected things or not.