thegradstudent

I still haven’t heard any good news from MAs in my program trying to move into a PhD. I’ve just heard about a number of additional rejections, and those are just the ones people are candid about. “Have you gotten into a PhD program?” is becoming an increasingly undesirable question, so it’s hard to get information. I never ask it and I cringe when I other people do.

I haven’t heard any ambiguous news either, which is interesting. What I mean is, I expected to hear about people getting into PhD programs but with limited funding. Instead, most schools seem to be dealing with the economic crunch by accepting fewer PhD candidates but granting them normal financial packages. I did just hear, however, that Stanford is going a different route. According to my information – let me know if anyone can confirm or deny this – they accepted around 20 candidates… but only funded half of them. I understand that the current climate necessitates creative solutions, but there is no way that this is a good idea. Schools already have to deal with the divisions that can split MAs and PhDs, or the bitterness that can arise when students who received more prestigious scholarships don’t live up to that potential. Believe me, I’ve seen both, even though I think my program deals with those issues better than most. How much worse would it be to have a PhD class split into paying and non-paying, for students on both sides of the divide? Instant camaraderie killer. And how are the unfunded students ever going to climb out of those years of debt? A good job upon graduation is never guaranteed, and even the best ones don’t pay a lot right away. Unless you are already independently wealthy it seems like a horrible idea to go into a PhD program without guarantee of funding. At the same time, I can see why people might decide to go anyway. At least they were admitted, right? And it’s not like they’re passing up on a fantastic current job market. I’m just glad I don’t have to make that decision.

Sorry that my more recent posts are such downers, but that’s what I’m seeing around me.