PhD program "waiting list?"

March 24, 2007 9:45 PM

Help me interpret the response I received from graduate school, and give me advice on how to proceed.

Posted on behalf of Ambrosia Voyeur, who's used her AskMe ration for the fortnight:

After waiting with bated breath for four months, I heard back today from the graduate school of my choice. This school was my first choice, but is now my only choice before going to Plan B: a teaching credential program. I was rejected by two other schools. This is a PhD program in Media Studies. The program is only a few years old, and as such holds little prestige. It's perfect for me, however, in every way. They have admitted about 12 students per year so far.

They sent me not a rejection or an acceptance letter, but an invitation to visit and participate in a 2-day conference, including reception and dinners, presented by current students. Expenses will be paid, and the conference is two weeks from now. I was told I'm on the waiting list. How common is this practice? Is it being used to further screen acceptable applicants, or to persuade acceptable applicants to choose this school over other options? What should I expect? How should I behave? I think I make a great impression, and possess probably a greater level of maturity and professional amiability than is average. Is that what I'll be on display for?

posted by contraption to education (24 comments total)

They sent me not a rejection or an acceptance letter, but an invitation to visit and participate in a 2-day conference, including reception and dinners, presented by current students. Expenses will be paid, and the conference is two weeks from now. I was told I'm on the waiting list.

This is a bit strange. I've never heard of a school rolling out such a welcome mat for wait-listed students. Usually, those who are wait-listed are treated as if they don't exist, until a space opens up.
posted by jayder at 9:52 PM on March 24, 2007

They actually used the term conference? I've never heard of such a practice, but who knows what you crazy media studies kids get up to. It sounds a lot like the "admitted students' weekends" that schools use to woo admitted students.

If you have not been admitted, you are correct in realizing that your invitation to this event is intended to serve an evaluative function. While you're there, be sure to talk to the professors with whom you'd like to work about your research (past and future). Focus on figuring out how'd you fit in the department ("I could help Professor X with her research, since it's in my area of focus") and convince others of this as well.
posted by chickletworks at 10:09 PM on March 24, 2007

They linked the conference schedule, in fact. Also, the email was unusually warm: "I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. I look forward to meeting and talking with you. With best wishes, Department Head"

Thanks, chickletworks, and now I'll retire to my celebratory wine and ice cream and get outta here.

p.s. paging k8t
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:15 PM on March 24, 2007

I'd go to the expenses-paid conference and, as chickletworks suggests, get to know the faculty and show off your good qualities. I remember a faculty member at one of the many fine graduate schools I've attended telling me that that was quite common in that particular program for admitted students to enroll elsewhere, since it is common for students to be accepted to several programs. As a result, many of the students in the program had originally been on a waitlist--in some cases, they didn't even know they had been; they just got an acceptance letter after others had already said, "No, thanks."

If this program is newish and smallish, it's possible that people they admit do regularly choose other programs, so people may really move up from the waitlist regularly. That they are paying your expenses suggests to me that you are still viable in their eyes, so unless you're ready to turn your back on this possibility, I'd go with a light heart and a spirit of optimism. Good luck.
posted by not that girl at 10:21 PM on March 24, 2007

They want you. I can't imagine why they haven't accepted you yet. Is it possible that they don't want to give you an acceptance if they're not your first choice in some weird bet-hedging manner?

Make sure you go to the conference.

Definitely let them know that this school is your first choice. You could give them a phone call/email or you could wait until you get to the conference.
posted by onalark at 10:33 PM on March 24, 2007

Cannot hurt to go.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:59 PM on March 24, 2007

I am going. That's for sure. One thing about this school is, it's only an hour from my hometown.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:08 PM on March 24, 2007

Have you emailed back the department chair? I would do so, saying something about how you're excited for the conference and about their program, which is a perfect fit for your interests. If they are trying to feel out who will actually come, it might help you to let them know that you're serious about the program.

Is it possible that they're playing some sort of game with funding and they don't want to make an offer until they know whether you'll come? I got an unofficial acceptance from a place that wanted to know whether I'd accept before they made an official offer, because if they admitted me with funding and I didn't come, they'd lose the money. Could it be something like that?

It does strike me as very odd. I can't see any reason that they'd pay for you to come out unless they wanted you. Only some of the places to which I was admitted offered to pay for me to visit.
posted by craichead at 11:14 PM on March 24, 2007

It does strike me as very odd. I can't see any reason that they'd pay for you to come out unless they wanted you.

Agree completely with these two sentences. I was schmoozed a little by a prospective PhD supervisor. And by schmoozed, I mean he paid for lunch. Not for the interstate airfare or other transportation costs. And that was when he knew I would be paid for by the government, so didn't have to find any funding for me.

And you're getting sent to a conference. With dinners. Fully paid. It's bizarre. I can only assume the same as craichead. That they've decided you're in.

Unless it's all a cover for some bizzare cult, and the letter is just a scam to get you in before brainwashing you to use your media studies skills to sell Amway. But I find this unlikely.
posted by kisch mokusch at 12:09 AM on March 25, 2007

I would guess that a smaller department might not be able to admit students without their having advisors.

I would bet this is an opportunity to meet with potential advisors and see if there's a fit. If so, you're admitted. If not, well, no sense wasting everyone's time.
posted by JMOZ at 12:13 AM on March 25, 2007

Bringing you in while wait-listing you sends up red flags. Something somewhere is fucked up. It might well be something innocent, like the higher-ups want a chance to nominally review admissions to a new program. Or it might mean that the department is so internally fucked up that it can't agree on who to admit, which is a Very Bad Sign Danger Will Robinson Do Not Enter.

No harm in going, unless you have really pressing business that weekend.

At the conference, be yourself (and a little bit extra). While they're probably evaluating you, you need to spend a lot of time evaluating them as well -- or gathering information to help you evaluate later. You're talking about spending several years in indentured servitude... a bad fit can easily be worse than just doing something else next year.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:43 AM on March 26, 2007

The "smaller department" argument falls flat. A PhD program in media studies that admits *12* students a year is going to be one of the largest such programs in the country, certainly if all are funded admits. How large is the faculty? Most serious PhD programs don't admit much more than one student per FTE faculty line per year. If there are fewer than 12 faculty members, something is odd here.

ROU is right that it sounds like there might be some disagreement on the admissions, though it's awfully late for that and it would be a warning sign if true.

No harm in going and checking it out.
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:12 AM on March 26, 2007

I think it's quite likely that they admitted 12 people, waitlisted another 12 or so, have now received some "no"s, and are now trying to decide to whom on the waitlist to offer those spots. Since they had the departmental open house scheduled anyway, it was easy to send out 12 letters saying "come and we'll pay your expenses," and then they have an extended "conference" to meet and assess each applicant.

Yes, it's unusual (mostly because it is expensive, and many departments don't have the money to put on such lavish affairs every year), but not unheard of -- I've had plenty of friends who were flown in as part of being courted by graduate schools, and I know of departments that make their financial offers after the open house, so as to be able to use the open house as a chance to assess who gets the full ride and who gets the one-year partial scholarship. Be aware that you are "on the clock" the entire time -- the professors and staff will be assessing you, and current students (with whom you will probably do social things like going drinking in the evenings, or whatever it is that hip media studies people do) will also be asked to share their impressions of you. In some departments the voices of current students carry a lot of weight in admissions, while in others they have little say; since you don't know, it is better to assume that they are a significant part of the assessment.

But as said above, you need to focus on assessing them. Even if it means delaying graduate school for a year while looking at other options, you shouldn't go to a place that gives you a bad feeling or where there won't be good advising. (Does that 12 students a year include masters students?) Find out what the ratio is of phd students to available advisers, and ask lots of current students about that dynamic -- do they have to compete for funding and for advisers? It's still early, so you won't be able to assess how the department does in terms of time-to-completion, but the current students can tell you what the policies are like in terms of making sure (or not) that students are progressing towards their degree.
posted by Forktine at 3:59 AM on March 26, 2007

Another possibility is that someone in their fundraising department got funding for this little shindig because some funder thought that it sounded like a neat idea, unaware that it's not a typical practice.
posted by desuetude at 5:57 AM on March 26, 2007

I have never heard of anything like this, so it sends up a few red flags for me. But I can't definitively say that its a bad thing, so I agree with those saying that it can't hurt to go and see whats up. And I agree with fourcheesemac that a program that admits 12 grad students a year in media studies sounds pretty big.

When you go to this event, make sure to do two things: (1) talk to the current grad students, in private. Ask them in detail about the program: what life is like for them, how much funding they get, whether the faculty in the department get along well with each other, how much their workload is, etc. etc. (2) Find out how well the program has performed in placing its students in jobs (since its relatively new, none may yet have been placed, but it can't hurt to ask). This is the single most important measure of how good a PhD program is, and your likely future coming out of it.

The worst-case scenario here is that this department is using the PhD program as a money-making enterprise - e.g., they admit 12 students a year but few or none of them are funded, so its a net gain for the department. They might be inviting you to camps to give you a hard sell to enroll without funding. I strongly doubt this is the case, but who knows.

Also, I don't think that email was unusually warm. Sounds like basic academic politeness to me.
posted by googly at 6:11 AM on March 26, 2007

It doesn't sound odd to me at all. They need to fill the 12 seats they have open in order to maintain their budget numbers, but they have to be careful not to admit more than 12 because they likely don't have the capacity for more. Therefore, they send offers of admission to their top 12 and waitlist the next 12 or so. But they still invite the waitlisted people to the conference, because if some potential students drop out of the first group, they need to make sure they can pull from the waitlisted group. It is cheaper to spend money bringing in extra potential students to make sure they meet enrollment goals than it is to start next year with an empry seat or two.

That being said, going and making a good impression won't hurt you at all, but I wouldn't count on being admitted on the basis of the invitation.

I write this as professor that is currently involved in starting a graduate program. You would be surprised at how much the money factor comes into planning.
posted by procrastination at 6:30 AM on March 26, 2007

Call them to ask if you've been admitted. Seriously. Grad schools do weird stuff all the time because they're understaffed--they may well have forgotten to send you an acceptance. A friend recently got a letter turning him down for an assistantship, and he had to call to ask if that meant he'd been admitted anyway. (They were like, "Oh, yeah, sorry, congratulations, you've got a huge scholarship coming.") You have a right to know where you stand in the process at all times, and it's not at all strange or imposing to ask for clarification. Call and say, "I'm calling to ask for clarification." Don't guess.
posted by hamster at 6:47 AM on March 26, 2007

A different field, but:

My physics department invites all their accepted applicants to come out for several days, wines and dines them etc. to convince them to come.

Up until several years ago, they also invited applicants who they weren't quite sure about - so that half of the students visiting were being evaluated (and knew it), and the other half knew they were in. I'm not sure what the not-quite-accepted applicants were told, whether the words "wait list" were used, but I'm guessing this is the kind of situation you are in.

I'm not sure, either, what percentage of these students were eventually accepted - but my impression is that it was fairly high. They presumably had other students who they didn't invite out at all, and these would constitute the more traditional "wait list."
posted by wyzewoman at 7:13 AM on March 26, 2007

Oh, and: I only found out that I was accepted to this physics program when I received an email saying "here is a list of all the other women we've accepted this year!", and I saw my name on my list.

I didn't get the official acceptance letter until several weeks later, and I never received the acceptance phone call/email that other students got.

So, yes, graduate schools can be wonky about this sort of thing.
posted by wyzewoman at 7:15 AM on March 26, 2007

Two data points: (1)When I was applying to get an MFA, I found out I was admitted to one big school in New York when I got an email telling me that (for really petty reasons) they wouldn't accept the scholarship I'd been awarded from the Department of Education (which is also how I found out I'd received the scholarship). I wound up going somewhere else.

(2) When applying to PhD programs, the school I ultimately did wind up attending brings in 10 or so students for a "prospectives' weekend," which turns out when you get there to be a all-day, pretty grueling set of interviews. Only about five people get in, based on the interviews and a general sense of how you "fit."

Every school is different. I'd go and see how things shake out.
posted by BackwardsCity at 9:08 AM on March 26, 2007

Maybe I'm not cut out for graduate school but I'd personally just pick up the phone and call my admissions contact to ask exactly what this meant, or perhaps the department head since s/he claimed to be happy to answer any questions you had.

Given that media studies supposedly involves the examination of communications, perhaps this is your last pre-entrance examination: seeing how you respond to/research a confusing missive with mixed messages.

I am only half kidding.
posted by phearlez at 11:39 AM on March 26, 2007

k8t is in cairo, egypt (well covered) on her palm pilot on crappy wifi. pls send an email! i wont be at the confrence, seeing rufus wainwright that night. tell me what's up and i can ask when i am back next week.
posted by k8t at 3:17 AM on March 27, 2007

ps, my "associated" dept at same school only invites accepted grads to these visit weekends. then they tell them the funding package. dont know if media studies will do the same tho. Pls send email to profile AND school email - which is easily found on dept web page. i have crappy dial up at night tonight and crappy wifi at day.
posted by k8t at 3:23 AM on March 27, 2007

Well, I attended the conference, fascinated if a little shaky. I participated impressively enough to receive plaudits from one of the professors in person, and yet received a one-sentence email last night, announcing my rejection. I am so bummed. I was in the top 8 of 110, but not the top 4, I suppose. I really thought I had it. Thanks for the help, all.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:24 PM on April 11, 2007