Here are some of the things from various admissions files that have made me sad (details changed to preserve anonymity)
• “I’m sure Stu Dent could do well in graduate school, provided you can get him to talk to you more than I ever could.”
• Transcripts with three times the number of courses (and substantially better grades) in music than in physics.
• Deep, Meaningful quotes from rock bands and dead hip-hop artists in the footer of the applicant’s cover letter.
• “No other institution would benefit more from my presence than yours.”
• “I only want to work on Topic X! Nothing is cooler than Topic X! My intellectual life is a shrine to Topic X.” Except, our department has no relevant work on Topic X.
• “Stu Dent has excellent physical intuition and will undoubtedly succeed in graduate school”. Except, Stu has mostly B’s and C’s in their physics courses and a 15th percentile on the physics GRE.
• Students who have taken no math beyond calculus.
January 16th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
[...] Here are some of the things from various admissions files that have made … Go to Source [...]
January 16th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
From my admission committee days I seem to remember loving to see these type of quotes. The application goes straight to “Pile 3″ and the stack gets shorter with little wasted effort. (Pile 1 is “yes, obviously”, Pile 2 is “reevaluate after normalization”, Pile 3 was “Really?!”)
January 16th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Just wondering but how often do you get an honest application that says “I only know enough to get to this point and want to continue learining.”?
January 16th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Intellectual elitism is but one of many socially constructed value systems which deprive the world it seeks to enlighten. I too shall soon seek the path of grad school, and yet, I realize such a path can only instruct me on the effective (and hopefully efficient) utilization of theory, as well as its practical and abstract applications. Wisdom is not included with this package, however. We must never limit the avenues through which Wisdom chooses to reveal itself to us…
January 16th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
[...] here and there Academia Cosmic Variance gives tips for applying to graduate school in physics. I’ll highlight a few of my favorites: Here are some of the things from various admissions [...]
January 16th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Orion — I do give a certain amount of leeway for somewhat silly things that applicants write, if it looks like something that the student will mature out of. I’m also very aware that there are cultural codes that people from well-educated backgrounds absorbed instinctively, but that first generation college students may have had no exposure to. Thus, I don’t give major demerits for peculiar statements from someone with a non-traditional background. However, if someone has had every advantage and still chooses to act like an arrogant ass, then it’s a red flag.
January 16th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
I hope none of my recommenders said anything like that… I hate how everything is so secretive in these decisions.
January 16th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
“No other institution would benefit more from my presence than yours.”
Oh my. Bullshit and fatal ambiguity in one sentence. That’s very special.
January 16th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
I know that your graduate admissions system has worked for a long time, but be careful when judging people on numbers. I know there are few other metrics in which to judge, but in my personal experience (although I was lucky), admissions committees don’t pay attention to hardship. For instance, I think most places would rather get an A student than a B student who had to work 40 hours a week to live.
I imagine I’m unfairly judging your comments, but I’d rather see a post about the interesting diversity of people who want to go from BS to PhD rather than the numbers that disappoint you. I’d rather laud the people who will do great things (which is a category I don’t include myself in) than mock. We have more good physicists than jobs, so when you make hard cuts be more polite about it.
Most of your comments are good critiques, but it’s just so negative to disregard somebody for liking music, for instance (I don’t know the grades they got so I’m interpolating).
January 16th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Hmm. What exactly is bad about quotes from rock bands in the footer of the cover letter? I would not expect it to be good _or_ bad, just a little decoration probably put there to give a personal touch. Or did I miss something?
January 16th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
CT — I’m sorry if I gave the opposite impression, but we in fact give a lot of weight to other circumstances, and actually tend to favor students with non-traditional paths, as they are usually notably more committed and mature than a typical 4-years-then-straight-to-grad-school applicant. Students who have worked “real jobs” during school also are viewed favorably, and are given more leeway on grades, provided the GRE indicates that they did in fact learn the material. (For the record, I’m not saying that it’s a demerit to take a traditional path and not have to work — it’s just that there are fewer extenuating circumstances). The only scores I’m “mocking” above are cases where the student’s record is pretty clear that their topic in grad school is not actually where their heart and commitment lies, or, where the _recommender_ has a very emphatic, but obviously incomplete picture of the applicant. The post was decidedly not about how it’s so ridiculous that people who get B’s think they can ever do research at a graduate level, ha ha. Other departments may have a far more restrictive view about scores, but ours definitely looks at the whole picture.
wokka — the quotes aren’t “bad”, just a bit unprofessional. It’s not enough to keep you out of graduate school, but enough to cause a committee member to shake their head a bit and chuckle.
January 16th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
My physics GPA, though not bad, was significantly lower than my overall GPA in undergrad. Apparently I’m good at everything but not excellent at anything, and apparently this is unusual. My physics classes were filled with people who were good at physics. My (largely introductory) classes in world lit, sociology, German, French, drama, history, etc. weren’t filled with people who were especially gifted in those areas, so it was easy to do comparatively well.
Math was different. I took more math classes than physics classes, did better in them, and got the honors degree in math rather than physics. But I didn’t _want_ to do math research.
That said, the sheer difference in number of courses in your music example, combined with the entirely divorced nature of the disciplines, makes it pretty weird. I had 17 math courses v. 13 physics, and math is slightly related (though less than one might think, unless you do string theory).
January 16th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
These posts about the admissions process are really helpful Prof. Dalcanton, especially for those who are applying this year or plan to in the future.
It’s good to know some of the common pitfalls of applications, however maybe you can also point out/pick out some quotes/things in the applications or in the process which you’ve been surprised by in a positive way? Not only would it be helpful but it’d be cool to see evidence of the awesomeness of some of the applicants you get.
January 16th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I think I was below the 15th percentile in the GRE….
January 16th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
I am about to finish my phd in theoretical physics. My thesis will be on integrable structures, mainly within gauge / string dualities. I am quite successful and have papers, including citations, where I am the sole author. Nevertheless, when I am done, early summer is the plan, I will look back at this time and give the entire science community and its structural hierarchy a big – Fuck you! I am so tired of this intellectual arrogance. It’s almost drowning me. I have a hard time falling asleep at nights just because I know I have to play the game every single time I go to the office (with the obvious effect that I work from home).
Good luck, I hope you find graduate students as boring as yourself! (no offense implied).
Love, REP
January 16th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Ok, actually, I should apologize. Julianne, you’re not the worst one on this site. Sean, with Mark being the close second, is way beyond you. So, please take my remarks as directed at the entire blog (which of course is a projection from my personal situation), and not on you personally.
Best, REP
January 16th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Grad Student — I think the key is to make sure the committee gets a full picture of what makes you tick, which in turn requires some self-reflection on your part. There is no single thing you can do on an application which makes you a shoe-in. The awesomeness of applicants is usually the result of sustained effort, coupled with some combination of smarts, maturity, and initiative — it’s pretty much a three-axis phase space, and a good applicant will have mapped out a non-negligible volume of it.
January 16th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
rep — Sorry to hear about your experience. Astrophysics tends to be a lot mellower. Not all of it, nor everyone in it, but enough to keep most of us sane.
January 16th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Hmm I wonder what happen if the student’s transcript has about 3 times the number of music course compared to physics course (hey the requirement for getting a music major has MUCH more credits involved – not necessarily the work – than for physics!), BUT the physics grade is as good or even slightly better (read: average of A/A-)? Why downplay people who also loves music beside physics?
January 16th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
student — If someone has done well in their physics courses, I cease to care about whether they double majored in basket weaving.
January 16th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
When I read the first quote I thought the problem was that you’d received an generic standardletter where someone’d forgotten to substitute in the name …
I got into grad school in DK, but I never finished my thesis nor did I author any papers. Looking back, I feel bad for having wasted so many resources, but my shrink says I shouldn’t worry so much.
January 16th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
As a fresh Italian Ph.D. I welcome this post, and I think you’ve even been too gentle.
Intellectual elitism, to cite one of the commenters, is what Western society damn needs. Heck, in my country I see people barely able to understand what they read on their manuals graduating with the best scores. There is a constant dumbing down of the teaching and of the evaluation. In my laboratory I have followed a lot of gifted and talented undergrads, but also a lot of arrogant guys that thought to know-it-all from day 1 just because of a few good scores. And people abroad keep saying that Italian graduate students are actually better than average, so I don’t even want to begin thinking about other European countries.
Selection, selection, selection. Everywhere. It’s damn needed. Apart from the guy with the hip hop quotes (that will be funny, but say nothing about his/her actual skills -I quoted Sonic Youth, among others, in my Ph.D. thesis!), I would have thrown all the Ph.D. applications you cite in the rubbish without even thinking twice.
January 16th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Personally, I’ll go for anyone with a pulse. Is there a space for that on the form?
January 16th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
there is right and wrong in science.
you have to believe that to do science.
there is some social element, (hierarchy, arrogance etc)
but that is not all.
some fields do have it more than the other.
January 16th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Why not teach more (astro) physics at the undergraduate level and then hire graduated students for positions as “Ph.D research assistants”? That’s the way we do things in Europe. A prof. has a job opening for a Ph.D. position and he/she picks the best candidate.
January 16th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
REP- You are not alone and many of us feel your pain. Intellectual arrogance in academia is a real problem and many successful people like yourself leave the field because of it. The problem with this post and others, is not the content, but the tone which is sarcastic and mocking at best. Keep in mind that for most of you `arrogant’ people, one can always find a large number of people, in comparison to whom, you will look intellectually stupid at best…big fish in a small pond and all that. So, a little humility is all we ask for.
January 16th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
It’s sad that you receive reference letters that are negative. Such reference letters should not have been written in the first place. If I am asked to write a reference letter for a student and I am not prepared to wholeheartedly endorse that student, I will decline to write the reference letter (”I can’t recommend that program for you,” “I don’t know you well enough to write the kind of letter you would need,” etc.) rather than write a letter that might sabotage the student’s chances.
January 16th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Dear Count Iblis,
no offense, but the European “feudal” system sucks and blows at the same time, so suggesting to US astronomy graduate programs to adopt is more than a little funny.
January 16th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
It’s really sad to see a bad reference like that. Which only supports the idea that academia is unbelievably arrogant and exclusive and will only work to advance the same types of people year after year, solidifying homogeneity and class gaps. Anyway, that’s a complicated subject but it really irks me that a professor didn’t say something positive of a student who sought out his/her guidance/help rather than expose his/her lack of communication to the majority of his/her students. It’s not his/her fault for that but to use that fact against one measly student is just mean..obviously since he/she didn’t think the student was a bad one. Ugh. Seriously, fuck that professor.
And the rest. I’m not in the field of science anymore and went to the other side, humanities. It’s just as exclusive but what’s kept me from applying to any grad school is the scary amount of obstacles briefly represented in this post. Yes more and more people should be weeded out but the standards just need to change. We’re born into our education and it’s very unlikely that one will get opportunities beyond what their class has been given for decades. I’m not blaming the author of this post for sticking with what the standards the school wants, but maybe she can step outside her role and see how they do nothing but guarantee the same type of people, the same types of numbers and the same type of arrogance. Academia is an institution in great need of change.
January 16th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Hilarious! The post that is – the comments not so much.
Commenters: Don’t judge the process by the funny few lines that come out of it, if I did that with my grading you’d all think my students are complete morons.
January 17th, 2009 at 2:21 am
Very funny. But one of these rejects will probably be your boss one day.
January 17th, 2009 at 3:24 am
It’s appalling to see how most commenters here do not seem to know the meaning of the word “meritocracy”.
Everyone’s defending the students like they were victims of some cruel system. But they are only judged from their merits and their curricula. If we cannot decide on that, on which criteria should academia decide which students can become Ph.Ds and which not?
@hatter: Keep in mind that for most of you `arrogant’ people, one can always find a large number of people, in comparison to whom, you will look intellectually stupid at best – Yes, it’s true. Absolutely. I, for one, don’t know if I’m truly good enough to be in the place I am, probably not. What I can say if that I’d prefer a system so selective that pushes me out with respect to one where every moron can stay in.
January 17th, 2009 at 4:53 am
Hey rep:
You should really try working in a lab or field environment before giving up on all science all together.
The core of science is falsification. And in my experience the more people falsify their own (and other’s) work, the less arrogant and more down-to-earth they actually are. In my experience, the arrogance found in science is nothing compared to that in the Arts or bureaucratic hierarchies. If science is done well, people get disproved, refined, and refuted before their egos can inflate to the level found on those other human endeavors.
January 17th, 2009 at 5:59 am
I think it must be a better way to judje students.
keep the good job
I will be a regular resder of ur blog
January 17th, 2009 at 6:25 am
DrEvil, I don’t see the problem with the European system. What is wrong with a system in which Professors has funds available for research programs for which they can hire graduated students? The student does the research, writes a few papers and uses the papers to compile the Ph.D thesis.
January 17th, 2009 at 7:37 am
DrEvil, I don’t see the problem with the European system. What is wrong with a system in which Professors has funds available for research programs for which they can hire graduated students? The student does the research, writes a few papers and uses the papers to compile the Ph.D thesis.
Agree. I personally would like some advanced course to be taken together with the research program, but the European system makes more sense to me.
January 17th, 2009 at 9:41 am
On a slightly tangential topic: I have several grad school interviews coming up over the next few weeks, and I was wondering how important this stage of the process is in gaining admission.
I’ve been told by several people that over 90% of interviewees get offers, and so once you’re offered an interview a place at the institution is basically yours to lose. Is this true?
Therefore, could interview weekends be more accurately described as recruitment weekends, where I just have to demonstrate a genuine interest in science and that I’m not an insufferable buffoon?
January 17th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Julliane,
Your bias against music courses is misguided. It perpetuates a myth or stereotype about music. As a professional musician with advanced degrees from a very famous music school, I can assure you that the course work in music theory, musicology, and history are quite rigorous. You could have easily said “a student who does well in course work outside their intended major,” instead of showing your ignorance of music. I am a layman in physics, but have read widely for many years on the topic, hence my visiting this blog. The abstract thinking, mathematics and critical thinking required of advanced music degrees is intellectually intense work. Physicists do not have a corner on that market.
January 17th, 2009 at 11:29 am
DRS (and a few others above) – Julianne has expressed no bias against music. She also didn’t actually say anything to imply that she thought it was bad to do well in coursework outside one’s intended major. I believe (Julianne can correct me if I’m wrong) that 1) She used music not to single it out, but because it was an actual example she saw, or in any case because she saw an actual example with a specific subject and changed it randomly to music to disguise the details; and 2) as she herself clarified (although it was clear in the first place) “If someone has done well in their physics courses, I cease to care about whether they double majored in basket weaving.”, and “The only scores I’m “mocking” above are cases where the student’s record is pretty clear that their topic in grad school is not actually where their heart and commitment lies”. Pretty simple really.
January 17th, 2009 at 11:50 am
When I was reading grad applications about 15 years ago, submissions from China posed something of a problem. What do you do about a student who is praised by a faculty member for being “diligent”? From an American, this would be totally damning; but maybe the respondent merely meant “hard-working”? Even so, what we were looking for were words like “quick” or “quirky” or “original”, and as I recall, we never saw such words in Chinese applications. Yet those who came to us often turned out to be well described by words like that.
January 17th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Some folks seem to have a misunderstanding about graduate school.
Graduate school is to prepare people to do their own research. Not everyone is cut out for this!
Think about it this way: suppose you had a training camp which has a limited number of openings; the idea is to prepare someone to qualify for the Olympic marathon team and to be competitive at the international level.
Do you think that someone whose best 5K run is, say, 17 minutes (or slower) should apply for this camp? Of course not! Someone who wants to prepare for the Olympics should have already shown substantial talent for the discipline. Saying “oh, I love to run; you should accept me or you are being “elitist” is absurd.
I hesitate to point out that there is always the rare exception; I remember a physics Ph. D. student at the University of Texas who started his academic life as a business major; he went on to get his Ph. D. in 3 years at UT-Austin and got his postdoc at Harvard.
But still he proved himself (at U of Illinois Chicago, where he is now a professor) prior to going to UT.
January 17th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
There is nothing wrong with having high standards for graduate school and nobody is questioning this. The problem is cultural. Intellectual arrogance refers to an `attitude’ which is condescending and mocking towards people who are considered to be below the standard. For example, in this post, instead of sarcastically pointing out the student’s negative recommendation letter, there should have been outrage against the `recommender’…as has been pointed out already, the culture needs to change so that at least Profs refuse to write letters instead of sabotaging their students.
There is such a large undercurrent of frustration and down right misery among so many graduate students across the US. Of course none of them can do anything because they need recommendation letters to move forward. I have seen many students orders of magnitude smarter than some of the faculty leaving the field out of frustration.
It’s not about lowering standards. Physics is hard and not for everybody. But a little humility and empathy towards the students that don’t make the cut is needed.
January 17th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
What do you do about a student who is praised by a faculty member for being “diligent”? From an American, this would be totally damning; but maybe the respondent merely meant “hard-working”?
I checked and in my language (Italian) the equivalent of “diligent” means someone that works hard and straight to the objective, with high precision and respecting rules and time. Is has a bit of a connotation of being slightly too “square”, but is it considered wrong in USA?
Even so, what we were looking for were words like “quick” or “quirky” or “original”, and as I recall, we never saw such words in Chinese applications. Yet those who came to us often turned out to be well described by words like that
Asians belong to cultures where often originality and quirkiness are viewed actually quite negatively (even if things are changing). Asian cultures are… well, original, in Western standards. We just welcomed an Indian graduate student, which proudly showed us, among other things, his “certificate of good character” that the University gave him. No kidding, really: they have a diploma to conferm that they are actually nice people.
there should have been outrage against the `recommender’…as has been pointed out already, the culture needs to change so that at least Profs refuse to write letters instead of sabotaging their students.
This is a touchy subject. On one hand, it’s true that bad recommendation letters, if driven just by personal dislike of the student, without scientific grounds, are the worst you can get. On the other hand, a negative review, if objective, could be said to have the same value of a positive review for the scientific community at large: it helps other research groups to avoid hiring people that perhaps are not made for the work. However it’s true that this could be too much destructive. I’d say that if a student is “so-and-so” he/she surely deserves another try and needs to be encouraged. But if the student is utterly, objectively incompetent, however (it happens), and doesn’t realize it himself (it happens), I would write a negative recommendation letter, even if I wouldn’t be happy to do that.
January 17th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
[...] Science and education I posted this blog post from a physics professor who was trying to give tips on applying to grad school. [...]
January 17th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Hatter — the recommender was being a bit snarkier than they perhaps should have been (and, as I said, I changed things around a bit), but also did positively point out the student’s skill in problem solving in homework and exams — it was not a “negative” recommendation letter, just one that was trying to give all the information that might be relevant. In this particular case, however, every single letter mentioned that the student was so quiet and reserved as to make even basic communication difficult. This is information that an admissions committee absolutely should know. So, I can’t actually be outraged in this case (which happened a few years back). And frankly, I doubt that these letters would keep the student out of grad school. Most students apply to many grad schools, and there will be one that will value the student’s problem solving ability sufficiently to admit them.
And I know that as a student, it can be terrifying to think about what might be in your recommendation letters, as it is the part of the process that is largely outside your control. If it helps, I have never read a truly negative letter. Even students with the most colorful backgrounds find people who are willing to say positive things about them. Maybe not every letter says the student will be the next Newton, but they go out of their way to point out the student’s strong suits. And, when they mention some aspect where the student still has room to grow, they usually thoughtfully discuss the student’s progress in that area. So, from the other side, I think students’ fears are amplified.
January 17th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Julianne- my sincere apologies to you if I got the context wrong. In that case my comments should be taken in a broader context and not directed at you personally.
January 17th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Thought this one was kinda neat :-
“IF I knew what I was doing, I’d already have my Ph.D.
As it is, I want to attend your grad school with the aim
of finding out what YOU are doing”
January 17th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
What I think is arrogant is that on the order of half of the responses to this post have been condemning the author for trying to provide some humour. Recognizing the funny side of things doesn’t mean one is cynical and microcosmically representing everything bad about academia. Whether or not those problems exist, this post is not an example of them.
January 17th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Alexander — I actually don’t take any offense. The whole process of getting into graduate school, getting your degree, getting a postdoc, etc can be incredibly demoralizing and defeating. During times when you’re feeling that way, it’s hard to maintain much humor about the topic. Also, one does run across enough examples of Bad Behavior in the field that it becomes easy to start seeing it everywhere. So, I’m sympathetic, and actually feel kindof bad for setting off people’s triggers when they’re in a tough state.
January 17th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Julianne- that last comment is much appreciated. I agree that some people here, including myself, seem to be projecting from their personal situations and experiences. Your post probably did not deserve such responses. My apologies again.
I would like to make one more point regarding recommendation letters. The one snarky comment in an otherwise positive letter could actually be a subtle way of sabotaging the student. No one is likely to write a blatantly negative letter since they are not anonymous.
Good luck to us all navigating through academia.
January 17th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Love this blog, and especially the unsolicited advice series. I heartily agree with the examples Julianne has given as being… undesirable. Reminds me of a piece on NPR I heard today which basically said “Surprise! sometimes in life you try your best and it’s NOT good enough. This is why American Idol is fantastic: it provides a much needed dose of reality to many”
Sometimes you find a post that you feel is being written to you personally (currently engaged in my 2nd attempt at an Astro PhD program). I’m here to say that graduate admissions feel like Astronomy Idol, but without the 43seconds of national air time. Like all things when you’re young: waiting is a bitch, and you often just want off the roller coaster.
January 17th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
A letter writer should never hesitate to write a negative letter, or decline to write a letter for a student because she has nothing nice to say. If all I ever received were positive letters, then letters would lose all of their relevance. Negative letters have real value, and the idea that letter writers should decline to write letters for students they have a dim opinion of merely results in biasing those letters that the student eventually does get written on his or her behalf.
January 17th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
one can offer an objective critique of a student in their letter. But to throw in a one line comment that “irks” any prof from ever considering the application is a different matter altogether.
January 17th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
The systems isn’t perfect, but there are reasons people use it. As someone who reads, writes, and requests recommendations…
If you are an undergraduate’s academic advisor, on a student’s thesis/dissertation committee, are their research advisor for a small project (mostly for undergrads or young grad stuents), and especially if you’re a student’s Ph.D. or postdoc advisor, then _you have an implied obligation to provide them with honest letters of reference in all but extreme cases_.
Think about it. These are the people who (should) know someone’s professional work best. Therefore, they are the people that should be most helpful in assessing their qualifications, potential, etc. Those are the people that committees want to hear from, so students should be getting their letters from these people. If the people who know someone’s work best were to decline to provide recommendations for the lower half of our students, then committee would wonder why and it would be extremely difficult for the student to get any job in the field. Therefore, we need to write recommendations that span a wide range of enthusiasm.
For grad school, it’s not practical to call each student’s previous advisers. So we need to include both the positive and negative. For more senior positions, the custom (at least among American astronomer) is for letters of reference to focus on the positive. Before hiring a postdoc, I make private phone calls to the current and maybe even a previous adviser to get the complete picture, ask probing questions, etc. I expect others to do the same and will answer honestly. Enough effort goes into postdocs or faculty hires, that reservations are better communicated over the phone, where there is less risk of something being over-interpreted or misconstrued.
Also realize that you get multiple letters for a reason. You don’t need everyone to be gushing with praise. For grad school, you need at least one person who is enthusiastic about you and can convince the committee that you will succeed at their program. Having your third or fourth letter contain faint praise will not ruin your chances. If one person says you’re proficient, one person says you’re improving, and one person says you need to work on that more, then you can still get accepted to even top tier Ph.D. programs. If every letter says you can not communicate effectively and doesn’t mention any progress or efforts to improve, then you have a problem. Hopefully, at least one of them has tried to help you realize that you need to work on that problem.
Realize that a career as a professional astronomer/physicist is extremely demanding. If that’s your goal and you do not have a strong background in physics, then there’s no point in suffering through several years of low-pay, long hours, and hard work. Sometimes there are students who are pretty good, but have weaknessess. As an adviser, I try to steer students to apply for positions that are a good match for them. That includes their interests, but also their academic preparation, how committed they are to research, etc. But sometimes a student wants to apply to “the best schools” and I feel are think they are unlikely to succeed there. (This problem is especially prevalent among the bottom half of students at top tier schools. I think they may be used to thinking of themselves as being top students, but they have not demonstrated the drive, motivation, and willingness to work hard that is necessary to succeed in graduate school.) While Caltech, MIT, or Princeton can be a great place for some very hard working and well prepared students, many of my students would not succeed there. Fortunately, the same students may have a good chance of succeeding in an astronomy or planetary science Ph.D. program at a good state university. If they want to give that a try, then I encourage them (and appropriate committees) try at a university and program that I feel is appropriate for where they are.
As an adviser, I feel good when I hear back that a student was both denied admission from a program where they are unlikely to succeed and accepted to programs where they are likely to succeed. While the system is definitely not perfect, I can report that of my first few recommendations, no one was accepted to programs/jobs where I thought they would not succeed and every one has resulted in an acceptance/job offer at the university/position that I thought was the best fit for them.
If you become an academic scientist, then you will constantly be competing for resources… admission to grad school, scholarships, postdocs, fellowships, telescope time, faculty positions, research grants, etc. At each stage, the competition is tougher. By the time you’re applying for grants, the review committees are judging your qualifications without reading any letters… You better hope that at least one person on that committee remember your previous publications, presentatitons, grant proposals, and even your lunch conversations favorably. That standard is way harder (and scarier) that asking for a letter from your last adviser.
January 17th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
This blog post and the comments were very informative. Thank you. But I would like to know the experiences of other contributors of this blog too. How is the application review process going at UC Davis, Stanford, Caltech, UPenn, and UChicago?… Yeah you guessed it right… I am an applicant.
January 17th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
the problem with allowing “completely negative” letters to become acceptable behavior are too many:
1. It’s an issue of trust. The professor is explicitly LYING to his student when he agrees to write a letter. There is clearly an understanding in the students mind that the advisor will be recommending him at some level of enthusiasm. If the prof cannot do this then he must be honest with the student and not write the letter.
2. It puts too much arbitrary power in the hands of one person to end one’s career.
3. It will make the politics in academia far worse than it already is.
4. The system will almost definitely be abused by many…just a matter of statistics.
One can still distinguish between positive letters by the level of enthusiasm, a record
of the work done, specific positive things mentioned by the prof, and personal conversations with the prof. This is how it works now for the most part and I think it works well. It should be strongly frowned upon any prof that writes a “completely negative” letter…It reflects more poorly on the prof’s personality(vindictive, petty, and mean) than the student.
January 18th, 2009 at 9:04 am
“1. It’s an issue of trust. The professor is explicitly LYING to his student when he agrees to write a letter. There is clearly an understanding in the students mind that the advisor will be recommending him at some level of enthusiasm. If the prof cannot do this then he must be honest with the student and not write the letter.”
Indeed, this is the most vexing issue when considering writing a negative letter. I have only written one once. In that case I warned the student in advance that I could not write a positive letter, but he pleaded that he did not have enough letter writers and wanted one anyway. I noted that in my letter, and tried to put as good a face on the evaluation as I could, but in the end there was very little positive information to transmit. It’s been a decade and I’m still not sure whether I did the right thing.
January 18th, 2009 at 11:58 am
It sound to me you are an intellectual snob. I am sorry people are not as academically immaculate as you, the author. It is very simple, 18, 19, 20 year old kids make mistakes: that is part of life. But, like most people, they probably regret those mistakes. Those mistakes should NOT HAUNT them for the rest of their lives.
Why not give these people a chance to make for the mistakes of being young and imprudent? It is one thing to just not “have it” in a subject, it is another to be lazy; as one gets older, wisdom helps alleviate both. If they can not make it, it will clearly come out in grad school. Instead of being so critical, why not help people succeed? Point out their mistakes and give them clues to help them help themselves.
January 18th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
“Why not give these people a chance to make [up] for the mistakes of being young and imprudent?”
So you want to admit them all into grad school? There are not enough resources for that. The admission committee must make decisions based on incomplete information about applicants to distribute scarce resources (and that includes feedback on applications). This is inevitably going to hurt some people, because it is a statistical game. I fail to see how that is intellectual snobism.
January 18th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I don’t see that there’s any lying whatsoever when I write a negative letter for a student. I am being asked to write an objective and factual letter. I have never made any promise to a student about what I will say in a letter, and any student who thinks that my agreeing to be a reference means I have only good things to say is engaging in wishful thinking and misconstruing what letters are about.
January 18th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
KC- In that case you completely misunderstand the process of recommendation letters and what goes through the minds of your students. I feel sorry for you and your students. Your students cannot trust you at all and that is just sad. Just like doctors , the faculty must have first in mind:
“Do no harm”.
You can choose to not help a student advance in their career. But to take `deliberate’ action to destroy their career is just horrible. I hope profs like you are extremely rare and that your students are aware of your reputation so they know what they are getting into.
January 18th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
agreed. When a student asks for a recommendation letter, they are asking for your “RECOMMENDATION”….look up the definition of that word in the dictionary King Cynic:
>n.
>The act of recommending.
>Something that recommends, especially a favorable statement concerning character or qualifications.
>Something, such as a course of action, that is recommended.
If you cannot “recommend” that strudent for the job then you should not write the recommendation letter…see how it works? Quite simple really.
January 18th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
This is all very fascinating, particularly as things are so different in different places. To follow up the comments by “grad” (I hope his/her friends “div” and “curl” will join in at some point), in the UK we generally don’t have “recommendations” but “references” or “testimonials” which are supposed to describe the candidate’s character and abilities in a manner that is useful to those doing the recruitment. It is NOT meant to contain only the good bits!
If a British professor wrote a reference for a student for an American graduate school in this style it would probably deliver the kiss of death for their ambition, but having one year received references from a US institution on behalf of 4 different students who were all apparently the best student that institution had ever had in physics, I think I prefer the old-fashioned British understatement.
The point is that the referee is not only providing a service for the student but also for the recruiting school . It is, I think, perfectly valid to include negative points as long as they can be justified objectively.
However, references transcripts and other paperwork can only establish whether a student has reached the threshold level of technical competence that is needed to commence a research degree. But that’s a necessary but not sufficient condition for their success. The other factors – drive, imagination, commitment, and (yes!) diligence – are much harder to assess. I think this part has to be done at interview.
And it’s by no means true that the best students at passing examinations turn into the best graduate students. Research is a whole different ball game.
January 18th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Peter Coles- in fact a lot of grad students in the US hesitate to ask for recommendation letters from profs in Europe or Asia for the very reason you mention. Part of it may be different systems and part of it is also cultural. Generally, in Europe or Asia the faculty are quite conservative or reserved when giving praise to their students…this can seriously hurt a student who is applying in the US.
In the US, it is the specificity of the positive comments that are used to distinguish letters. For example, simply saying that “my student is the best in the institution” is not enough. It has to be backed up by specific things like grades, research abilities, technical abilities, computer expertise, anecdotal evidence displaying the students intelligence or originality, etc.
So, it is quite easy to write a “strong” recommendation letter. It is also easy to write a “luke warm” recommendation letter which simply has generalities like “he has potential”, “hard working” etc without “specifics”. In this way it is not that hard to distinguish between really strong letters and just good letters.
But to write a negative letter is truly the kiss of death.
January 18th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
If everything is amplified by hyperbole then it inevitably generates more noise….
If one is going to write a “negative” letter then one should of course discuss the matter with the student before doing so. If you really don’t think a student is cut out for graduate study then you should really say so to the candidate face-to-face. If they persist you should probably suggest another referee. But in the end you have to say what you think is true, even if it is the kiss of death for graduate application. It’s not, after all, the end of the world if you don’t get a place.
Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.
January 18th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
agreed. But the key is to be honest and upfront with the student about this. I think that is all that is being argued.
You don’t want to have a situation where the student is left guessing as to whether his Prof is going to help him or screw him over. This will create a really unpleasant environment in an already tough setting.
January 18th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
I just dismiss American recommendation letters. They are so over the top that they just don’t have any credibility or legitimacy.
January 19th, 2009 at 9:23 am
I must say, the more I read about the USA academic system, the less I like it. This thread is no exception.
January 19th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Dear devicerandom,
yes, it is a terrible, terrible system. Postdocs making more money than professors from many countries in Europe, how is that good? And astronomy graduate students actually being allowed to choose their research topics, and not blindly following their “feudal overlords”? No wonder the best young astronomers from US are trying so hard to leave that rotten system and to get jobs in Europe.
January 19th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
I disagree wholeheartedly with most of the professors posting here.
I hope one of you assholes invents a time machine so someone can travel back and ruin your careers by issuing letters explicating your arrogance and sense of self-entitlement. Perhaps you have forgotten that your jobs are to research *and* educate.
Do you honestly see yourselves as gatekeepers whose duty it is to admit only a privileged few?
It is not your job to weed out students whose quirky aspects or personal indulgences you find objectionable. Exactly why would a musical quote rule out a student from consideration? I certainly believe that most rock bands could produce quotations vastly more meaningful than anything most of you have ever written.
In fact, since you are so inclined to mention a few of the things that would bar a student from further consideration, why don’t you do us a favor and share all your criteria. That way students that don’t fit into your narrow spectrum can be spared the hassle of applying.
I bet that the truth is that you love seeing those things on applications. You get your jollies, the student doesn’t get admitted and the graduate school has pocketed $60-100 to process the application.
By the way, I am a graduate student at a highly ranked US institution, so this is not a case of sour grapes.
—
Finally, it appears many you have indeed misunderstood the purpose of the letter of recommendation. You are supposed to recommending. If you cannot recommend, you should not write the letter. This is tantamount to academic blacklisting. Furthermore, perhaps the student has others who will write a positive letter. You are certainly in no position to deprive any student of the opportunity to get into a graduate school. The next time you consider writing a negative letter you would be wise to reflect on what might have happened to you (and your Nobel prize winning career? You are a gift to science, aren’t you?) had your adviser thought that you did not live up to his or her standards.
—
“you can not communicate effectively”
Part of effective communication is knowing how to spell words like “cannot.”
January 19th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
yeah, it must take a really sick and twisted mind for a Prof. to be calmly able to sit down and write a 1-3 page letter basically bashing a student to make sure he/she never gets a job in the future. You guys that write negative letters need to get psychiatric help! seriously!
January 19th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Stu Dent — I actually wrote a rather long post about this last year, which you can find here. Also, if you read the discussion in the comments, you’ll find that none of the stated examples are actually anything that would by itself disqualify a student from admission. Granted, they’re not anything that would necessarily help an application (”Well, we weren’t going to admit this person, but the quote from Kid Rock really convinces me that they’ll do well here”).
I’m writing a longer post discussing the issues people have been talking about in the comments, but in summary, short of going to a lottery system, or something like the Match that med schools do, I don’t think there is any way around admissions committees needing to pass judgement on which of the applicants would be the best fit for the program. Sadly, those judgements are often wrong, or based on incomplete information, and some people get admitted who are not good fits, and others are turned down who would have done well.
January 19th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Yes, I read it last year when I was applying to graduate schools. I was disappointed by your highly biased admissions process. Saying that some applications are dismissed without being thoroughly reviewed should be grounds for disciplinary action by the graduate school. These people paid good money to have their applications looked at and considered seriously. If an application does not get looked at you should have the decency to refund that applicant’s money. For all you know, all those other circumstances you claim to sympathize with contributed to that applicant’s academic record. But then you’d never know without reading them…
Sure, maybe Kid Rock quotes won’t kill an application, but all other things being equal it certainly won’t help. And wouldn’t it contradict the “Evidence of maturity” you discuss in your blog?
To overcome these issues I’d suggest that every rejected applicant be provided with a set of reasons why he or she was not admitted and that an appeals process is available when for situations in which students believe they have been unjustly refused admission. If schools were required to cite “poor letters of recommendation” as reason perhaps students could apply again the next year, having done additional research with different faculty in the hopes of improving their chances. GRE tests can be retaken (and after 5 years you get a clean slate…) . Certainly not much can be done about grades, but work can be done in other areas to boost one’s chances.
January 19th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
[...] of a series of posts I’m hoping to write on aspects of being a Professor. Then along comes Julianne’s (rather innocuous and humorous in my opinion) post, and all kinds of craziness breaks out in the comments. So I’m still working on the other [...]
January 19th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Stu Dent,
get off your pony (no, it is not even a high horse). Nobody forces anybody to apply to a graduate program, and your “should be grounds for disciplinary action by the graduate school” threat is so laughable, it is not even funny. Grow up quick, it will be good for you, and maybe some day you will get your own jollies from reading applications from people who should never apply in the first place.
January 19th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Dr. Evil,
First, recognize the difference between a suggestion and a threat. Is it laughable because you yourself engage in such behavior?
No, nobody is forcing anybody. But not looking at applicants who paid you to look at their applications is called not doing your job, and it’s also called fraud. You see, believe it or not that fee you collect when people apply is actually meaningful. No, they are not paying the school to have faculty laugh at them while they sip their chai lattes. They are paying for someone to consider the application based on the credentials they have submitted. Collecting the fee and not looking at the application is called fraud.
I realize that you believe you are shielded from disciplinary actions because you work in academia (so I’m assuming based on your highly defensive stance), where tenure is a license to slack off and do shitty work, ignore your graduate students and teaching responsibilities, and stay on staff well beyond your productive years.
Maybe someday I will be reading applications. Maybe I’ll even laugh at a few of them. But that will be my privilege having read them.
I’m afraid to dismount the pony while your head is stuck firmly up its ass.
January 19th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Stu Dent — We do not drop any applications into the circular file without evaluating them. On the basis of the scores, GPA, and recommendations, we choose to evaluate some of them more thoroughly. I agree that if people submitted applications that were never looked at, that would be wrong. But that’s not what’s being done.
January 19th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
So what does “more thoroughly” mean? I would assume you would read the entire application the first time.
Hypothetical and extreme situation:
Is the student with a 2.3 GPA that has been fighting a rare disease (which the admissions committee doesn’t know about because they didn’t read the application thoroughly enough…) get tossed in the trash so that a more “qualified” applicant can be admitted?
My point is that all applications deserve the same consideration before they are scrapped. Otherwise, you should publish your admissions criteria. Come to think of it, since reading all those applications is so time consuming, why not do this in the first place? If you’re going to reject all applicants with GRE scores below, say, 600, come out and say so. You will save yourselves lots of time reading applications that don’t satisfy your standards and applicants would be able to apply somewhere else with the money they saved. You might not get your daily dose of laughter so I suggest a Far Side calendar to fill the humor-hole.
In fact, it is my understanding that the entire reason that this is not done is so that applications can be considered based on their overall quality. That is, unless that’s actually not the case and there are some unpublished criteria….
January 19th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Stu Dent — Our program assistant reads every single letter and personal statement as it comes in, and double checks that we are not letting any viable candidate fall through the cracks, particularly those who have been up against larger than typical obstacles. However, “viable” means a student that we believe stands a very high chance of passing our qualifying exam, as we are not a department that wants to flunk people out once they’ve arrived. If a student has a 2.3 GPA, and a very poor physics GRE, we have many reasons to suspect that they have not mastered undergraduate physics at a level that will let them master the graduate level astrophysics we’re about to throw at them when they arrive, even if they have heartbreaking reasons for not having done well at the undergraduate level. It is not a judgement on their value as a person, or on their ability to eventually succeed in a research career, but it is a judgement that they did not have sufficient physics training to flourish in our program at the time they applied for graduate school. If that same student spends a year or two doing a masters in physics, and does well, or retakes the physics GRE and demonstrates their knowledge that way, we’re frequently happy to admit them.
In fact, I have thought a lot about the virtue of schools publishing their statistics on GPA+GRE scores, as a way of guiding students towards making realistic choices about their applications, but I worry about students that we would be interested in admitting self-selecting out because they thought their GPA+GRE score was too low, when in fact there were enough other signs of potential. It would also encourage schools to be even more score based than some already are, so that they didn’t look “low quality” (i.e. why would a student with a 90th percentile bother to apply to a school that accepts people with mere 70th percentile scores? — judgmental goes both ways).
January 20th, 2009 at 12:16 am
It’s certainly understandable that you would want to admit students who are likely to succeed in your program — any program would and should. Your blog gave the impression that certain applications weren’t read. In fact, you stated, “The resulting cut usually preserves more than half of the files, so while we don’t read all the files, we at least read most of them. ”
I’m basing my statements on this quote and the context surrounding it. Yes, numbers and grades are all important.
Why spare students from self-selection? You obviously have a criterion on which you are basing “too low” scores. So, if you’re not going to admit those students anyway, where does the problem lie? The elite academic institutions get to hand pick from their applicant pool anyway, and top applicants who do apply to lower ranked institutions are likely going to select from the best schools that do accept them, so the same process is still playing out if only behind closed doors.
On the other hand, publishing scores might actually give some aspiring Ph.d. students hope. If you knew that the average physics GRE score for Harvard was something like 800, but that in previous years they admitted 1 or 2 students with 600 scores you would be more inclined to apply. However, if you had a score of 500, you probably wouldn’t apply and they probably wouldn’t take you if you did. The student is spared the fee and much angst and school is spared the time and resources of reading an application that had no hope.
Regarding the qualifiers, all schools give the same bullshit line about wanting students that can pass their so-called rigorous qualifying exams. Given that you still have a second line of defense — the qualifier — at your disposal to weed out students who still aren’t up to par, why not give a few of the long shot students an opportunity. If they pass the qualifier they had what it took in the first place and, well, if they don’t, isn’t that why the quals exist in the first place?
Now, let me answer my own question: money. Of course, the graduate school with its limited funds doesn’t want to waste money on students that aren’t a sure bet. How unfortunate that many good aspiring scientists have been denied the opportunity to go to graduate school because the government has its priorities backwards.
I guess what I’m suggesting is a somewhat more egalitarian admissions process. All applicants that paid a fee deserve to have their applications go through the same review process as all the others. When I accepted the offer from my present institution I actually asked them how they selected me. Apparently they crunched some numbers, read my letters (they were thoroughly familiar with them and cited specific things the writers mentioned — I was impressed) and had each faculty member rate the application. I think had they done it based on numbers alone I would have missed this great opportunity, so I think it’s reasonable to give others a fair chance.
January 20th, 2009 at 12:16 am
< /soapbox >
January 20th, 2009 at 12:56 am
I’m baffled at to why you interpreted the original post last year as doing anything different. The original post said “we only read files where some weighted combination of GPA, GRE, or letters suggests that the student might potentially be admitted”. I suspect this is what your current institution did as well. In your particular case, your “weighted combination of GPA, GRE, and letters” (i.e. what they got after “crunching your numbers”) indicated that you might potentially be admitted, so they spent more time on the small details of your application (which is what I meant by “read”, which is perhaps the part which was unclear — “reading” a file to me means pouring over every detail, as opposed to quickly skimming it). I see absolutely no difference in what was done in your case and what I described previously, unless you’re sure that your department can quote an equivalent level of detail for applicants who had substantially less favorable numbers to crunch.
Wrong. It’s time. We invest a tremendous amount of time and effort mentoring our students and developing their talents so that they can have the career they want. In addition to time, the cost is also emotional. It is absolutely wrenching when a student doesn’t make it past the qual. It’s upsetting for the faculty who have worked with the student in classes and research projects, and it’s incredibly demoralizing for the other students, and particularly the students who’ll be taking the qual in the following years. The heightened level of anxiety does nothing to help their education and productivity. In spite of your assumption, the qual does not exist as a means to decide who’s worthy to continue in the program. Instead, it’s a tool to force students to synthesize several years of course work into a cohesive framework.
I do wish more students would ask to waive the application fee. It’s imposed by the university’s graduate school, not the department, and they’ll waive it for cases of financial hardship.
January 20th, 2009 at 1:34 am
“We invest a tremendous amount of time and effort mentoring our students and developing their talents so that they can have the career they want.”
I’m glad to hear that you do this. Unfortunately, this is not the norm. Most grad students would consider them incredibly lucky if they have an advisor that “spends a tremendous amount of time and effort mentoring students”. Most of the time you are on your own and it is up to you to impress your advisor enough to be considered worthy of him/her spending anytime with you for research or writing papers together. Usually, the more prestigious the school, the more of douchebag your advisor is likely to be.
January 20th, 2009 at 4:14 am
“Transcripts with three times the number of courses (and substantially better grades) in music than in physics.”
That one made me sad. I have a friend that is in graduate school for Physics. She’s also a very talented musian that has studied music a lot longer than she’s been studying math or physics. She wants to participate in school sponsored musical events in the same way that she currently participates in school sponsored sporting events. The problem is that the Music department will now allow any participation, not even the use of practice rooms, unless she’s enrolled in a program with the department. I asked her why she didn’t take some music classes since she loved music so much. Her reply, “Because it could potentially damage or limit my physics career to have a bunch of music stuff on my transcript.” This is at the U of Wash.
So sad. And is sounds like you support this point of view???
I wonder…if you found out a candidate played the drums a lot and sometimes danced around and chanted like a American Indian… Oh, and then you found out that he experimented with LSD and broke into buildings because he was “bored”..would that be a good candidate? I’m sure you know who I’m refering to but for some of the other readers out there: The Nobel Prizing winning physicist Richard Feynman did all those things.
I’ve personally interviewed several hundreds of candidates for work in the high-tech industry. I’ve found that people with Ph.D.’s are often the least likely to be hired. Why? Because there is something about graduate school that sucks the creatively and thinking skills right out of them. What is going on here? I think you post is a clue. People are discouraged from exploring other disciplines. They are discouraged for doing things too far outside the box. They are discouraged from spending any time on anything that their advisor or the committee would not be comfortable with. The result: a robot.
January 20th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Since I’m not privy to all the details I can only speculate as to what the department actually did. I hope they didn’t just do what you’re suggesting.
Needless to say I would certainly have been disappointed and would have even felt robbed if my application and all of its not contents (including my SOP, on which much time and effort were spent) wasn’t entirely read because one blemish on my record got my application tossed immediately.
“Wrong. It’s time. We invest a tremendous amount of time and effort mentoring our students and developing their talents so that they can have the career they want.”
Time spent on students IS money spent. It’s money for stipends, tuition deferrals, travel, fellowships, etc.
Yes, it’s devastating when someone doesn’t pass the qualifiers but I don’t honestly think that anyone believes it’s there so students can synthesize material into a coherent framework. If that were the case then it wouldn’t explain why many schools have separate tests for different subject areas (i.e. separate tests for QM, CM, thermodynamics, etc.)
And you’re certainly not going to convince students that the qualifier is for their own good…
“I do wish more students would ask to waive the application fee. It’s imposed by the university’s graduate school, not the department, and they’ll waive it for cases of financial hardship.”
And also when the department their applying to only looks at the numbers on their application?
January 20th, 2009 at 8:40 am
correction: their applying to only –> they’re applying to
January 20th, 2009 at 10:32 am
David — I repeatedly explained above that admissions committees have no problem with students double or triple majoring in all kinds of subjects, as long as they have also acquired sufficient physics preparation to handle graduate coursework. In the quoted case, a student had taken less than one physics class per quarter, and had not done particularly well. I think it’s great that the student was a well-rounded person with a wide variety of interests, and there is nothing that says that they didn’t also have the potential to be a kick-ass research scientist. But in this case, there was evidence that the student did not have en0ugh of the actual training they needed to function easily at the next level, at the time they applied. (I know the comments have gotten long, so I completely understand missing the clarification. And sorry if I’m being a bit curt — I was pretty zen about this whole discussion, but it’s starting to drive me round the bend.)
Stu — Even though you’ve been consistently rude, and I’ve tried to maintain a level of respect and decorum in discussing important issues with you, I confess it’s getting harder. Where did I write that files are not entirely read because of “one blemish”? I’ve repeatedly said the opposite — there has to be a consistent pattern that raises concern. We take multiple steps to ensure that we don’t let single blemishes damn candidates who otherwise have promise. “Time spent on students IS money spent. It’s money for stipends, tuition deferrals, travel, fellowships, etc.” — yes, but that’s not the obstacle in our particular department, which you clearly know so much more about than I do. “I don’t honestly think that anyone believes it’s there so students can synthesize material into a coherent framework” — you caught me. I was totally lying when I wrote that. (end sarcasm). Stu, not all departments use the qual in the same way. Some happily use it to weed people out. Our department is not one of them.
And Stu, I realize you see yourself as fighting a great injustice, and in honor of that I’ve tried to treat your concerns with respect, but you will have better results in your arguments (political and scientific) if you actually manage to treat people you disagree with with some degree of respect, listen to and acknowledge their points, and then respond in some way that does not suggest that you think they’ve been lying.
January 20th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Stu,
“Obscenity is the Crutch of Inarticulate Motherfuckers”. Good luck in your career, you will need it.
January 20th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
In all seriousness Prof. Dalcanton, Stu Dent and a lot of these dissenters are just being dicks. First, its pretty clear that Prof. Dalcanton had said that they evaluate the totality of the applications (including recs/gres/gpa) when making a decision. Criticism of her post has repeatedly taken her statements out of context, misread or contorted her statements in ways which indicate either a lack of reading comprehension or an attempt to attack her based upon whatever personal slights the commentators already had.
With respect to David (and to about a dozen other posters who’ve made this nonsensical point) its absolutely true that there were people like Feynman and other who could have had perceived ‘blemishes’ on their application which made them somewhat out of the norm outside of academics. The only difference is that they were also pretty damn good physics students who indicated strong research potential. If an admissions committee is looking at the next biggie smalls or brian may who can also pretty clearly prove that they have very promising research potential than clearly any types of idiosyncrasies won’t have much of an effect. Otherwise if (as other critics of this post have alluded to) the worry is that you might miss out on the next unexpected great astronomer/physicist BECAUSE of the fact they have a 2.3 gpa and a 500 physics gre than I suggest those who are those concerned with that group of applicants set up a private university and take those students. Their yield of 5-6 out of 100 grad students with respect to who can actually produce researchers who can pass quals will quickly sink them to the bottom of any totem pole of respect and will probably cause they’re dept to fold relatively quickly.
I don’t think this post was particularly out of line and some of these criticisms have been nonsensical (such as stu dent misreading the post repeatedly to attack or David claiming that Prof. Dalcanton’s suggestion that taking 2-3 TIMES more music classes than physics somehow created the atmosphere which dissuaded his illogical friend to not even take ONE music class) and rude. All of the things the professor listed as things a grad committee doesn’t want to see in applications has an analogue in the private sector by the way. A question mark from a reference, a fatuous reference to a jim morrison or lil wayne quote in your cover letter or a lack of experience in a field related to the job your applying to all are negatives when applying to a job.
January 20th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
You forgot one: record of calls to the department from a Mrs. R. Dent, inquiring into the progress of her son, Stu’s, application.
January 20th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Sigh.
I doubt you spend enough time with individual students preparing them for the exam that time is a major concern of yours. Last time I checked (earlier today, admittedly, so things might have changed by now) students were educated together in a classroom.
Have some accountability and take some pride in choosing the best applicants.
” “I don’t honestly think that anyone believes it’s there so students can synthesize material into a coherent framework” — you caught me. I was totally lying when I wrote that. (end sarcasm). Stu, not all departments use the qual in the same way. Some happily use it to weed people out. Our department is not one of them. ”
Does it matter what you’re stated purpose of the exam is? The results are the same. That’s like saying,
“At this emissions testing site we’re not trying to weed out old cars from the road, we just want to protect the environment from pollution. We’re using the test in a different way.” And yet the end result is the same if you fail…
“All of the things the professor listed as things a grad committee doesn’t want to see in applications has an analogue in the private sector by the way”
I don’t think this is really a direction you want to take this discussion. In industry applications are tossed out because the person reading the resume may not think the school the applicant attended was adequate, someone’s name is unpronounceable, or for any number of other reasons. Hey, you have to sort through 600 resumes somehow….
And Dr. Bonzo,
If my mother had called to check I’m sure she’d be disappointed to here that her son’s application, which paid roughly $60 to submit, was discarded without being looked at. I’d honestly like to here you justifying that. You’ve perhaps grown to comfortable working in conditions where there is little accountability for your actions. But then you’re probably one of those academics who thinks teaching classes is below you, too.
January 20th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
“here you” –> “hear you”
Anger + typing = bad spelling.
January 20th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Stu — There is no aspect of one’s life where rudeness is a helpful virtue. If you’re getting worked up enough that it’s hard to maintain civility, you should probably take a break for a bit.
January 20th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
In industry applications are tossed out because the person reading the resume may not think the school the applicant attended was adequate, someone’s name is unpronounceable, or for any number of other reasons.
Stu, have you ever been part of a hiring process? I have hired people for jobs both in the provate sector and in government, and I can assure you, no one would ever toss a resume out for reasons like these. it is true (unfortunately!) that a prestigious college helps, but relevant work experience helps a lot more.
Julianne – if this comments thread is any indication, you have the patience of a saint. Which is a very good quality for a techer to have.
January 20th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Perhaps no one where you work, but life isn’t ideal. I, too, have friends on the inside.
January 20th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
[...] has almost gone up in flames (metaphorically speaking) . What I thought was quite a moderate though humorous post on the subject of recommendation letters for entry into graduate schools which evolved to include [...]
January 20th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
An Astronomy program looking for about 5 new recruits receives 140 applications. 4 different faculty members divide up the applications and sort them in those proverbial piles 1,2,3. And then the committee sits and goes through EACH of the 140 applications and create a combined set of piles. Finally, they make a dozen offers and keep another dozen in the wait list after hours of deliberation.
That’s the typical picture. No application goes thrown away without at least one committee member, and quite often at the final meeting a lot of application migrate to an adjacent pile (either higher or lower).
The simple point is, there are only 5 openings, and potentially most promising applicant, either by virtue of past research or academic achievement, will get in. Sure, many of those in the rejected-pool would actually make excellent researchers if given the opportunity to prove themselves, but unless they can make a convincing case of that, whose fault would that be?
Usually, most of them would get admitted in one or other program; but if one applies to 10 graduate programs and gets turned down by every single one of them, then the statistical probability is that they wouldn’t be doing very well if admitted anyway. Being a graduate student means being a job-holder, with an extended training period. Unlike your college days, you get paid rather than paying. The admission committee members has an obligation to make sure that the research funds and facilities are used on the most promising ones.
The academia, nearly by definition, is a meritocracy. You can call foul if a musical instrument store salesman refuses to sell you a piano because he didn’t like the color of your shoes. But you can’t object if a dozen different music schools turn down yous scholarship applications after listening the performance audio recordings you sent in.
It’s just like that.
January 20th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
“One correspondent in particular got hold of the wrong end of the stick and proceeded to beat wildly about the bush with it, accusing academics of everything from intellectual snobbery to the Whitechapel Murders. ”
I love when people accuse others of taking things out of context and then quickly proceed to indulge in the same action to forward their own goals.
January 20th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
“If my mother had called to check I’m sure she’d be disappointed to here that her son’s application, which paid roughly $60 to submit, was discarded without being looked at.”
Dear Stu, I think by now your mother is used to be being disappointed when you are concerned (yes, I am slightly ashamed of stooping to your level, but it feels good anyway.)
January 20th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
DrEvil — I know it goes against your name, but could you please try to set a good example for Stu?
January 21st, 2009 at 12:18 am
“The academia, nearly by definition, is a meritocracy. You can call foul if a musical instrument store salesman refuses to sell you a piano because he didn’t like the color of your shoes. But you can’t object if a dozen different music schools turn down yous scholarship applications after listening the performance audio recordings you sent in.”
Oh, but you can — if they listened to the first few chords and then scrapped your application.
But they will of course give the excuse that no student worthy of their time (read: money) that no qualified applicant would start a song in the key of F# minor…
January 21st, 2009 at 12:19 am
Endless corrections upon corrections:
But they will of course give the excuse that no student worthy of their time (read: money) would start a song in the key of F# minor…
January 21st, 2009 at 1:23 am
Stu Dent: There is another factor in recommendation letters (and interviews) which seems not to have been mentioned yet, and that is attitude. An enthusiastic and affable student has definitely got an edge. Why would anyone want to work with an aggressive and rude student who periodically threatens to sue them for defamation rather than someone that will likely be easy to work with? A lot of PhD students wind up good friends with their supervisors, and when the opposite happens it’s a mess for everyone involved.
January 21st, 2009 at 1:56 am
You are correct. I did not read the entire list of comments. I also get very “curt” if I have to make the same point more than once. This is one of the reasons I am not in acadamia! I do appreciate you taking the time to do so.
Anyway, I’m glad to hear that you think it’s great that a student pursues other interests. I would hope that you might consider taking it a step furthur. Consider the case where a student does not pursue other interests. How likely are they think creatively (outside the box)? I think I’m getting ahead of myself though in proposing a solution when I have not stated what I think the problem is. The problem is that I see a lot of Ph.d’s fresh out of graduate school that have poor problem solving skills and poor creativily compared to fresh B.S. graduates in the same discipline. Of course there are many, many exceptions. On the whole though, it’s a sad truth.
It would be fascinating if the Psychology department would have some graduation student do a study to confirm my claim.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:43 am
Stu Dent,
I’m sure you have many qualities, but it is clear that a sense of humour is not among them.
Peter
January 21st, 2009 at 7:56 am
Joe,
I’m not sure why people keep bringing up irrelevant things. This is no exception. If you’ll notice I haven’t said much on the topic of recommendation letters. My problem is with admissions committees not reading the applications of paying people. This has been stated in previously blogs:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2008/01/29/the-other-side-of-graduate-admissions/
“We do not read all the files, I hate to say.”
and
“Therefore we only read files where some weighted combination of GPA, GRE, or letters suggests that the student might potentially be admitted.”
So quibble with me all you want, by all means call me an ass, but don’t argue with evidence that’s right in front of you.
January 21st, 2009 at 8:18 am
I am sorry Julianne, I will try to behave, but this one might be a lost cause. You have been more than patient, I guess raising small children is a good training in dealing with the likes of him.
January 21st, 2009 at 10:41 am
Hi Folks — While the CV commenters have consistently proven themselves to be an interesting and insightful bunch, I would say this comment thread has not been CV’s finest moment. It’s gone well and firmly off the rails, including personal attacks against a person who was genuinely upset, and that same person retaliating with equally personal and profane attacks. So, I’m closing comments for now, and hope that everyone can aim for a bit more forbearance the next time around.