In my previous post, I expressed some anxiety about an applicant to our graduate program who will obtain a degree from a bible college. This college is not one of the high-visibility "top tier" colleges like Liberty University or Oral Roberts, but is more like this one. In my opinion, the quality of the undergraduate program alone is grounds to deny his admission to our program.
Some commenters on the original post asked or waxed philosophic on admissions criteria, and I thought the topic was worthy of pulling out of the comments section and into a post of its own.
In almost every university with which I have been affiliated, graduate students are admitted to the program on an apprenticeship basis. That is, one faculty member sees the student's application materials, and admits the student to work with him or herself. Usually the student is brought in for an interview before formal admission, and the interested faculty member woos the student with interesting seminars, lunches with other graduate students, fancy dinners and parties. If the student is not insane, and the faculty member still believes, after the interview, that they can establish a working relationship, then the student is admitted. It is then up to the student to decide if a working relationship with that faculty member is desirable.
The initial choice of whom to invite for interviews is made, of course, by perusing the student's application materials. By the time we see these materials, the graduate school has already triaged them. Students who fail to meet minimum GPA and GRE scores do not usually make it into our box. The graduate school has very clear criteria for admission; the faculty are looking for something very different. Our criteria are very personal.
I find that the student's statement of intent and transcript are most important in deciding whom to bring in; other people look at recommendation letters and GRE scores. I like to note who the letter-writers are, but I don't often read the letters very carefully. They are always glowingly positive and, unless the letter-writer is a notable researcher with whom the student has worked closely, contain little useful information. I look for whether the student made an effort to familiarize him or herself with my work. I look for classes in advanced calculus, physics and chemistry. I look for writing ability. Sometimes, because the students' statements of intent are so highly polished, I sneak a peek at their verbal GREs. If that falls below 600 I get nervous.
The bottom line is this: No matter how good a student looks on paper, no matter how well-qualified, if no one wants to work with that student, no matter the reason, the student will not be admitted. Reasons for denying admission run the gamut from "I don't have room in my lab right now" or "I have no funding for this student" to "I don't want to work with international students" or "I once had a bad experience with a student from a bible college and I will never admit another one again." These reasons are never, ever documented, and it is sufficient to indicate only that we felt the student was not a good candidate for our program.
Students denied admission to programs they had their hearts set on may be infuriated by this, but graduate school is not like the undergraduate experience. A student's advisor is going to be one of the most important people in that student's life. Suppose a student works for four years to prepare herself to study behavioral economics under Professor Able at the University of Chicago, but Professor Able refuses to work with women and denies her admission. Is this fair? Absolutely not. Is this illegal? Not if women are being admitted to work with other people in the program. No matter how disgusting a professor's personal admissions criteria, an individual faculty member will never be coerced to work with someone he or she doesn't want, as long as the program's diversity numbers as a whole look good.
Graduate work is hard enough without having to deal with an advisor who doesn't want you in his lab. Students denied admission by Professor Able should consider themselves lucky that they didn't have to suffer under such an asshole for the five or six years it takes to get their degrees. There is a great deal of competition among graduate programs to attract the best students: if Professor Able denies admission to well-qualified women, there are a dozen other notable researchers, many in his own department, who will be eager to admit them.
Friday, January 04, 2008
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23 comments:
AP,
Thanks for the insight into the graduate admissions process. I've not had the pleasure of that particular ordeal, so it's pretty enlightening.
If I might talk about myself for a moment (what a concept for a blogger), I've noticed that there are a few people I've met that are, by all accounts perfectly nice people, but whom I can not stand to be around. I don't know the reason, but the people just creep me out, even though there is no apparent cause.
So, in your situation, if this guy would be someone who redlines your creepy meter, simply by virtue of having attended this school, then you may never achieve a fulfilling working relationship with him, which may not be fair to him.
I wouldn't think of it as a personal or professional failure to recognize this before you put both of you through the awkwardness of a bad relationship. Instead, I'd commend your self awareness.
Best of luck with your decision.
You're suggesting that a student is better off without an advisor who, for possibly discriminatory reasons, doesn't want to work with him/her. On the one hand I agree for the sake of the individual student, but on the other hand, you seem to be suggesting that this justifies whatever criteria a professor might have in mind, which is not acceptable to me as a general policy.
The advisor is not merely the gatekeeper for the degree; s/he is also the key to their students' first steps in their own academic careers. In many cases the name of the advisor is just as, or even more, important than the name of the university. I know for certain that my career path would have been quite different had I not been the student of a prominent advisor, as his network of contacts set me up with a great post-doc, as well as international collaborations that continue to this day.
I can think of at least two public examples of brilliant and prominent academics who also (apparently) are bigots. Even if their colleagues pick up the diversity slack, it's not okay for them to carry on discriminatory hiring practices, as it denies significant career opportunities to the victims of their discrimination.
Andrew, by no means do I think this justifies such criteria. It is not okay to practice discriminatory hiring practices. My point was that it's impossible to stop. If Professor Able is called out for bigotry, he only has to say from then on that he merely doesn't like particular candidates.
How does it stop?
In terms of your particular stated preferences, it seems as if you are making a hasty generalization about students from small Bible colleges. A sample size of one is hardly a representative sample.
Granted, within your system it is your privilege to make such a generalization, but the real question is whether or not you, as a thinking person, ought to continue to do so.
I'm not the product of a small Bible college, but because of my experience as a debate coach, I've known many students from small Bible colleges. As freshmen they were often naive and perhaps even ignorant. Every year I'd see them debate and grow. By the time they were seniors, their maturity and view of the world changed significantly. Now many are doing amazing work in the world, either as graduate students at R1 or R2 schools, or as ministers, teachers, members of the Peace Corps etc...
My point being that I'm not sure the kind of college a student goes to is a reliable indicator of the problems you discussed in a previous post. This may not be the situation in which you reconsider this bias, but you ought to reconsider it at some point.
My relationship with my advisor was much more like a personal relationship- more like that with family members- than a "boss" relationship. Because, just like with family, you can't end the relationship no matter how crazy it gets without making major lifestyle changes and surrendering some big dreams. Andrew, your advisor clearly believed in you and helped you get rolling, so you know how important this level of mentorship and advocacy is. I think the needs of individual students (and advisors) are all that matters here- you cannot force people to work well together in a student-advisor relationship. The prominent bigots should be labeled, but not forced to pretend they aren't bigots, because the only losers will be their students.
Ending up in the lab of someone who doesn't want you there- or worse, with someone who took you out of pity, because their chair made them, or out of a desire to be 'inclusive' when they don't really believe in you and your work would be such hell. It *is* such hell- I know a couple people who just couldn't get along with their advisors, for purely personal reasons, and they were screwed.
AP- you don't seem to want this kid in your lab. Period. Why waste any more time with an interview? You've got the information you need. Good luck with your other candidates.
IPF, I do have a bias, and the point of my previous post was to shed light on it and why it may or may not be reasonable. But you have misread this post, which was to discuss admissions criteria more generally.
Surely you would not disagree that a student with a degree from the University of Phoenix does not deserve the same consideration as a student with a degree from Princeton? I have not yet dismissed this student, as I have not seen his application materials. But I have gone to his universities website, looked at their curriculum, and even checked out their faculty. In my opinion, his degree is not a good one if it came from this program. The bible/nonbible issue does not enter into that decision.
When I was an engineering grad student at ILU, I was involved in recruiting new students, so I got a better view than just about anyone except the faculty. Students were accepted based on their application pack alone. No interview. Most of the time two or three possible advisors were identified by the faculty based on the students coursework and undergraduate research.* Often our faculty were familiar with the work of the undergraduate research advisor, who of course also writes one of the letters.
Once the students were accepted, they were invited to spend a day at the department, meeting potential advisors, touring labs and learning about ongoing research, meeting their future peers (us). This day ended with some kind of open bar thing at the local grad pub.
Invariably, (because we were competing with the other ILUs, and MIT, CalTech, and Stanford, for these same students) matriculation would fall short of the goal. At this point one of the faculty would phone China and arrange for a few extra guys to be sent over.
*Cause you ain't going to grad school at an ILU if you ain't done any research yet.
To me, graduate admission is all about fit with individual faculty. If you don't want a student, don't admit them. The source school matters. If you don't trust it, don't admit students from there.
"Suppose a student works for four years to prepare herself to study behavioral economics under Professor Able at the University of Chicago, but Professor Able refuses to work with women and denies her admission. Is this fair? Absolutely not. Is this illegal? Not if women are being admitted to work with other people in the program."
Is someone who spends four years preparing to work with Professor Able without doing any investigation as to whether or not it will be remotely possible bright enough to be in Grad School?
How the heck does an undergrad at some school in another state KNOW that Professor Able is a misogynist (unless he's quite open in his writing)? I don't know how to stop Professor Able's sexism, but blaming a student for not knowing seems downright unfair.
I guess what alarms me is how many intangibles are involved in the process, when very little of this is outlined on schools' web sites or information packets. Actually, even the tangibles are barely explained. It's as if graduate programs are intentionally nebulous about what they want, or just don't feel like articulating something that could be objectionable (such as what you outline above).
The personal statement is a perfect example. Some schools call it the "statement of purpose," others the "statement of goals," "autobiography," "teaching philosophy," "philosophy of education," etc. Yet few, if any, schools actually outline what those documents are to contain, so applicants are left wondering what to include. Ask around and you'll get 12 different answers. The word counts are all over the place as well: 200 words, 300 words, no more than 1,000 words.
Plus, with no real sense of audience or purpose, this material frequently comes off sounding like poorly written, pretentious tripe. Programs need to be clearer about what to include here. I'm not asking for a template, but some idea would be nice. The document may have a different function from one program to another, but applicants don't have a fighting chance if they don't know what to say.
I do think the interview is an essential part, but throughout my master's applications, I never had one. If I don't get one from a doctoral program, is that a red flag prior to the rejection letter?
How the heck does an undergrad at some school in another state KNOW that Professor Able is a misogynist (unless he's quite open in his writing)?
You network. You look for someone in your department who went to that university, or who knows someone in that department. You don't bet your future on someone you really know nothing about unless you are as naive as a teenage groupie showing up at a rockers room after the show and expecting a true love. How do you know he is going to get off his ass and get the funding for your research if he takes you? How do you know he isn't over the hill, out of touch or insane?
Where I went to school pre-phud program, here's how I "networked": my advisor called someone she knew at an R1, and gave me his advice. What I didn't know, was that he was an incredibly conservative scholar, and only suggested the most conservative programs. How was I supposed to know that, going, as I did, to a regional comprehensive school?
Not everyone has the advantage of being at an ivy or something similar, or of having profs who are well connected. And first generation college students really don't know all the hidden rules.
AP... I am torn on this issue. As an African-American first generation college graduate, I went to the religious (albiet better than Pacific Christian) university I went to because they gave me the most money and my parents couldn't afford anything more than the local state school. If the Ivy grad school that admitted me had looked to closely at the curriculum at my undergrad, I probably would not have been admitted. So, I did cringe a little when I read your initial post.
That said, I just spent two years teaching at a small religious college (hell on earth) that has a high regional ranking in U.S. News. What I discovered after I got there was (a) their ranking is based on fiction--they REALLY gamed the system to get that ranking, (b) over half the students admitted couldn't get into any other school in the state, (c) grade inflation is rampant because professors are routinely fired and/or denied tenure based solely on student evaluations. If I am on an admissions committee, there is no way I would feel comfortable accepting a student from that college because the GPA is completely meaningless. So, I do understand your dilemma.
To AP: what qualifies as "useful information" in a letter of recommendation? I am a junior professor with little research profile from a school not known for sending students to grad schools, so no one will respect my letter on name alone. A post on things professors value would be, I think, very useful information to send out into the world, to help others in my position, if you (or anyone reading) might feel like writing it.
Re question on Statement of Purpose above--my take: these are designed to convince depts/profs that you will take 4-7 years of their money and their time and do worthwhile things with it. That means, to convince them that you have the necessary energy and habits of thinking for your grad degree, and that you have mastered the basic required skills, so that they can build upon them. The SoP is an elegant assortment of the specific examples that prove those points. Note that "worthwhile" must be measured from their point of view.
AP, thanks for spurring this very useful discussion.
kingseyeland - you need to familiarize yourself with the work faculty are doing in the department you want to be admitted to, and write your statement around that work. It doesn't hurt to make some phone calls or send some email before you invest your effort in the statement. The statement is what will get you matched up (or not) with the faculty members who will admit you. If you write a good one, not too specific but not too general either, you will get several professors interested in you. Also, not all programs interview, but many do. It will depend on your discipline. Applying to Master's programs is very different than to Ph.D. programs.
Angry Liberal - your case is an example of why I am not going to make any decisions until the young man's application package is complete. I know I have a bias, but I refuse to make my decision on that basis alone.
Pronetolaughter - great idea. I'm going through applications now, and if I get any insights I'll post them.
I think if you want to rule him out based on your past experience that is totally your perogative. But you should still check out his application materials, you might be off track. Maybe he went to a crappy school because it was the only one he could go to, for various reasons, but really went above and beyond what he needed to go. (And then again you might be on track, and if you think his education doesn't prepare him, that makes some sense to me.)
Well if you're the one who has to work with him and you don't think he's a good candidate then say no. When in doubt, call references.
But it's very different in my field since we don't have labs / individual faculty do not have funding for students. Admitting someone, for us, doesn't mean a faculty member has to commit to working with them as advisor, director, etc. I never take people on like that unless they've had a class or preferably classes with me.
The complexity of Academe is a rarified world; I'm not qualified by virtue of experience to comment. However, I did work for some years at our University as a departmental secretary (pre-"administrative assistsant" days). I'm fascinated by all this - and I wonder if the student would not be flattered to know how much truly thoughtful regared his application is receiving?
Just in case you see this, as a graduate of a small evangelical Christian college, I'd say give the applicant a chance. When my husband and I were at Mount Vernon Nazarene College (can't call it a university no matter how much crap they send us with the new logo on it), there was a small cadre of very serious students. Yes, most students there couldn't have gotten in anywhere else (I tutored in the writing lab and know whereof I speak). Yes, many students were not serious about the academic part of the college but instead the religious and social parts. Still, there were those of us trying to wrest every single bit of a good liberal arts education out of that place, and I think we did. Your applicant might be one of those.
My husband was pre-med, and he ended up being the first from our college to get into CWRU's School of Medicine. He found that his background was more than adequate, and since he did not want to go into research, he has done very well since in residency and now as an attending.
I've recently started taking grad-level classes at our local state university. I was scared of the other students and the profs, assuming that I knew less than anyone else in the room, had read less, and just plain wasn't prepared as well. Instead, I've found that many students have not read as widely as I had to in college, cannot do a text-based analysis to save their lives, and have a hard time meeting paper deadlines and prof requirements. I may be in English, but I find it interesting that my college background has actually helped me for once, something I really had not believed when I signed up for my classes.
You never know--that applicant might have hated his school (like so many of us did at the Naz), studied his butt off outside of class, and worked really hard to make himself a great researcher. See what the rest of his packet says.
Hello,
Angry Professor, you seem to be backtracking on the subject of Professor Able. In your post, you didn't just say that his bigotry would be impossible to stop; you said that it was not illegal unless everyone (or almost everyone) in his department followed suit.
I beg to differ. If sex discrimination is against the law, then no individual decision-maker can be allowed to practice it. It may not be practical to even try to root it out entirely any more than to try to root out double parking, speeding, drunk driving, rape or murder entirely, but they all are illegal.
You raised a good point about Professor Able being, well, able to simply claim personal dislike as a reason not to admit any particular Y-chromosome-deprived student. Well, there's plenty of discretion out in the commercial world too. But if a business owner's only employees can all pee standing up, he'll have to explain why - with better evidence than "I just didn't like her...and her...and her..."
You're certainly right about the importance of personal compatibility between advisors and graduate students. But personal compatibility is quite important in most organizations. I believe personality conflicts are behind more firings and resignations than is incompetence.
Bottom line: if (most) American businesses in the 21st-century have seen the light and learned to look beyond gender at least in theory, and many times in practice too, then I see no reason why academic departments can't get with the program.
Let's assume, arguendo, that discretion in choosing and funding graduate students and setting their initial careers is vital to preserving the intellectual character of the academy, including training and acculturating the next generation of scholars. If senior faculty want that power, they need to assume the responsibility of making sure that power is only used without regard to, among other things, sex, religion, race, creed, etc.
Yes, this means confronting and if necessary disenfranchising the dinosaurs in their ranks. But if they do not exercise the responsibility, I will be neither surprised nor saddened to see the power taken away from them.
Jeff Deutsch
Hello,
GeorgeH and Bardiac, you've done a good job at uncovering an important issue: what practical steps can someone take to avoid falling into the trap of studying to work under a scholar who may not want you or who may be undesirable?
GeorgeH, you made an excellent point about networking. I - and I'm sure many other people - would appreciate it if you could elaborate a little bit and give a detailed plan for not only getting some information but also sorting the signals from the noise.
Unfortunately, GeorgeH, I see some noise in your comments which could obscure your valuable signals. You may not have realized it, but the way you wrote certain things, such as wondering if someone who doesn't know how to go about it is bright enough to be in grad school and comparing such an individual to a teenage groupie, sounds insulting. I'm sure you wouldn't be quick to take advice, no matter how good, from someone you believed was looking down on you.
Bardiac has an excellent point. Many people - and not just first-generation college students or even non-Ivy students - don't know the hidden rules. If you believe many students are ignorant of these rules - and you're probably right - it would be an excellent idea to discuss some of them, step-by-step, in an encouraging rather than demeaning way. (Depending on how committed you are to such a cause, you could write a self-help book or teach a course, and earn the gratitude of many.)
Last but not least, Bardiac, I'm sorry you got such a biased listing. Indeed some students would have wanted such a listing but the professor presumably had no reason to believe you were necessarily one of them. I hope your graduate education went all right.
Cheers,
Jeff Deutsch
PS: Trystero - what's an ILU? (I'm sorry, but Google gives me lots of possible translations but no clear one.)
Speaking as a grad admisisons chair in the humanities, let me try to answer the question about what to put in letters of recommendation.
As AP suggests, simple praise is not helpful since it is by far the norm. Specific description of the work done by the student that you know directly is most useful, as is comparison with other students (e.g., 'Student X received a 95% score in a class where the average was 82%' is a more useful comment than 'Student X was an A student').
Personal comments should be kept to a minimum unless you intend them to send a negative message ('Student X is a hard worker, and needs to work harder than most').
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