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Why are tuition fees for PhD students so high in the USA, despite not taking any class?
As a PhD student in a US university, my tuition fees are ~44,000 USD per year, despite the fact that I don't take any class: only 6 classes are required during the PhD program, and I've completed them during the first two years. Why are tuition fees so high? (tuition is paid by fellowship / RA / TA / ...)

It is worth noting that tuition fees for older PhD students (3 or 4th year and higher) are often quite lower than the fees for 1st and 2nd year students. For example at Rice University, the tuition fees for the mathematics graduate program are $19,940/semester for 1-3rd years and $1,108/semester for 4th years and above.

@AruRay Interesting! In mine (MIT), tuition fees are pretty much the same since I started (as usual there is some inflation).

Related:http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/21189/10643

@Jigg: Rice is also a private institution.  And at both Rice and MIT, the tuition for PhD students is an institutional fiction since no one actually pays it.  Thus supply and demand has nothing to do with it; it simply determines how much money flows between various units within the university, or between a granting agency and the university (and those agencies almost never actually pay the sticker price).

I assumed that the point of having a reduced rate for older students was to help out folks who are close to being done with their PhD but are no longer being funded (the difference between $19000 and $1000 is negligible/immaterial for a university, but quite material to a 6th+\epsilon year grad student! The reduced rate could be the difference between someone finishing their PhD in one additional semester they pay for out of pocket and having to leave due to not being able to afford to stay.)

I think it is essentially a scam. There are essentially 3 types of students (1) self funded, (2) departmentally funded, (3) externally funded. For departmentally funded students the tuition fees are essentially meaningless and just represent money being shifted around internally. Self funded students can be really hurt by large tuition fees, but departments can offset these fees by partial departmental funding (again just internally transferring money around). The scam comes when students are funded externally and the external funder is required to pay the full fee (and potentially even indirect costs on the tuition fees). Things get messy when the funding has a cap on tuition fees. For example the NIH NRSA pays 60% of the tuition up to $16,000 plus a $4,200 "institutional" allowance. Most departments I am aware of offer a tuition subsidy to individuals who get an NRSA.
It is worth noting that high fees not only puts PIs at expensive universities at a disadvantage (okay to be fair, it reduces their advantage) in that their research is more expensive than someone at a cheaper university, but it also puts them in an ethical dilemma. When tuition fees make hiring a PhD student more expensive than a post doc, it is hard for a PI to justify hiring a PhD student.

"I think it is essentially a scam." This is a bold statement, that I think is 100% correct.

The latter problem is easily taken care off by introducing postdoctoral fees.  Oops, they already exist.  So far they seem to be usually quite small, but who knows what universities are up to next?

The reason to hire a PhD student instead of a postdoc is that the former is going to be around for much longer time; and successful theses count towards the PI's CV. This is not only a US thing, in Sweden now it is cheaper to hire postocs than PhD students, and both are directly paid by the PI.

Despite the popularity, this doesn't answer the question and smacks of conspiracy theory. Charging tuition and indirect costs (IDC) on external grants is negotiated position between powerful, sophisticated entities. IDC and what's subject to it are periodically renegotiated between the US govt and universities. Both sides know that high IDC rates, just like high salaries, make a university less competitive in some ways, but at the same time universities need a way to leverage grants to pay for the things that support them. The system we have isn't perfect, but nobody got scammed.

@BillBarth My answer is that high tuition is a mechanism to extract money from funders. I agree with you that everything is up front and open making high PhD tuition not exactly a scam, but I think these schools are over stating the costs of training PhD students and being unethical making it essentially a scam.

@StrongBad, high tuition is a mechanism to extract money from whoever will pay it. The US federal government is fully aware and goes in eyes open. Most of these institutions are non-profits, so despite maybe a few high administrator salaries, most of this money "extracted" from these funders goes to make MIT a better place to get a degree. If funds departments to do research, hire more faculty and staff, buy equipment, run libraries, etc, etc. If your complaint is that MIT is too expensive, you are free to go somewhere else. If enough people do that, tuition will drop.

@BillBarth or to increase the endowment.

@StrongBad, what do you think that gets used for?

Overhead can't be collected on tuition paid by a grant.

Because, as you mentioned, they are paid for by someone other than you. This happens in any subsidized industry/system. Interestingly, the subsidies grow over time instead of shrink -- the reasons beyond that are something you should ask an economics professor; it is a distinct trend.
You'll find folks who say this is the way things should be as much as you'll find folks who think its a scam. It is a logical outcome of the current academic system, may be a leading indicator of its eventual demise, and at the moment is something you should probably not dwell on unless you happen to actually be an economics postgrad (in which case I doubt you would have posed the question in the first place).

Could you suggest some good search terms for people who would like to read more about this phenomenon?

@OswaldVeblen "subsidy impact", "effect of price control", "supply and demand", maybe "equivalence of subsidy and protectionism", etc. The recipes for shortage are well known in economics; the recipes for healthy function of a market, on the other hand, remain a mystery. (Other than "enforce voluntary contract, prevent abuse of monopoly, and don't touch anything else" -- which is politically impossible to follow in government or academia and does nothing to guarantee prosperity, just restricts the conditions of one form of disaster cycle.)

I am confused by this answer. Who is subsidising the system and why may it be a leading indicator of the eventual demise of academia.

@StrongBad Who? In short, government; outside of that fiscal input is voluntary (taxation is not). Why would that be interpreted by some as a leading indicator of the eventual demise of academia? I should be more clear: by "the demise of academia" mean the demise of the current system as we have it today. I do not by any means mean that academic study will cease (probably ever), but I do mean that the current post-WWII era of academia is considered by many to be in its final phase. Reasons range from the oldest debate about academia (the Sophist problem) to the market forces in play.

Here is a Forbe's article about the economic end of this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/avidan/2013/01/01/after-housing-and-the-stock-market-is-higher-education-the-next-bubble-to-burst/

There are costs to you being on campus and using university resources whether you sit in a lecture or not. True, my non-lecture years were a lot cheaper for the university, but that doesn't mean the costs were zero.
My university required me to register for place-holder Research and Dissertation courses which never met so that they would have some way to account for how much to charge me. My real courses and these fake courses had the same per-credit-hour charge (more or less). Imagine if you only had to pay for the real classes that actually met. Your tuition bill for the first couple of semesters would have been $100,000 to $150,000 and then your later semesters maybe only a few thousand. This is pretty imbalanced and hard to justify to some people, so many universities average the costs across all their students rather than piling it on the ones that have lectures. It's not the only model (see Aru Ray's comment about Rice), but it mostly works out.

There are also benefits to your being on campus. Namely that PhD students are often very productive researchers.

Why do you think taught lectures and seminars are more expensive than one-on-one meetings with your research supervisor?

@StrongBad, what makes you think I think that? The number of times I met with my supervisor for the faux Research and Dissertation classes I signed up for was independent of the number of credit hours they were listed as. Whereas a lecture course typically has guaranteed or required contact hours that can be budgeted for directly. Treating these faux courses under the same model is easier than lumping all the costs directly into the lecture courses (like maybe Rice appears to). I didn't intend to disparage time spent meeting with your supervisor.

@OswaldVeblen, but the pricing model isn't about recouping costs on an hour-for-hour basis. Otherwise, you would pay more to take a class or be advised by the Nobel Laureate at your university than you do for the classes taught by adjuncts. Yet, we don't do this. Universities are broadly egalitarian within departments at the very least, and to some extent across much broader swaths of schools/colleges (in the US sense). The model I describe with the filler research courses helps to maintain the model by charging students equally whether they take a lecture course or just do research.

To my knowledge, professors also don't get paid explicitly more for advising 3 students vs. 2 either. They're paid broadly to teach a certainly, research, advise students, and do service (committees). Teaching seems to be the one place where you might supplement your salary on a per-course basis by picking up an extra class or two beyond your required load, but it doesn't typically matter if 15 rather than 25 students register for it. You don't get extra pay for each extra student above the minimum for the course to make.

I ran some numbers, and it indeed does seem cheaper when students are meeting with an advisor a few hours a week versus taking classes. The key point is that a faculty member teaching a 3-hour class must spend much more than 3 hours on it. If the choice is teaching a 3-hour class of 5 students or advising 2 students for 1.5 hours each per week, both would consume the same amount of faculty salary except that the faculty member actually spends more than 3 hours on the class. I think we're in agreement overall @BillBarth

Consider this. A PhD dissertation advisor has one to a few  PhD students, and their salary is somewhere in the range of 100k to 200k USD per year. Advising PhD students is a higher level work and may be considered, as a matter of an abstract principle, more challenging or meritorious than teaching a course. While 44,000 USD per year is probably somewhat on the high side, considering the above and that tuition also covers various campus services and facilities, I think it is still quite fair.


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Can we use students' class homework solution for research purpose?
A colleague of mine would like to compare 25+ different Java implementations of the same homework. Is it OK (ethically/legally in the US) to share my students' class homework solutions with him for his research purposes?

You need to run this by your Institutional Review Board (IRB), as you would any time you use data from human subjects for research.
From what you describe, it has a good chance of qualifying for an IRB exemption under one of these categories (if identifying information is removed before giving the data to the researcher):

It is using existing data
the data comes from normal educational practices

but even then, the IRB needs to be the one to make that determination.

What is an IRB?

@gerrit US academic institutions often (always?) has an Institutional Review Board (IRB) (or some committees that act as such, e.g. here at MIT the  Committee on the Use of Humans as Experimental Subjects (COUHES) was established to act as the Institutional Review Board (IRB)), which is a committee that has been formally designated to approve, monitor, and review biomedical and behavioral research involving humans. I actually went through it recently for some research on MOOC data.

Assuming you had signed consent letters from the students, would you still require such approval?

@Raphael you still have to get everything approved by the IRB. The investigator has a conflict of interest here, the IRB is necessary as a third party oversight body.

note that many IRBs have IRB exception applications that are often very short 1-2 pgs. A full IRB request is usually in excess of 20 pgs of forms and essays. The two most important factors that are relevant in your case is (1) do you have the student's consent and (2) is there anyway that the data as stored could even possibly be traced back to the student's identity. If your answers are 1-yes and 2-no you will most certainly get an exemption.

@MHH  actually for exempt research, explicit consent is often not required (or, implied consent is sufficient). Consult your IRB for details.

'Institutional Review Board' is a US term but I would expect any university or research institution to have an equivalent body that should be approached for approval. The key point is that it is not up to the researcher themselves to decide on the ethics of their own research.

Franck doesn't say where he is.  What ff524 says is true in the US.  Any research with human subjects must be approved by an appropriate review process beforehand.
One horror story (allegedly true) goes like this.  A graduate student in music history spent her summer touring through Appalachia, convincing people to let her record them singing traditional songs.  But that research had to be thrown out, because of the advance approval process she hadn't known was required.

Thanks, interesting. I'm in the US. What advance approval process did she need? IRB approval?

What the approval process is called may depend on your institution.  I believe ours was called something about "Human Subjects".  There was another committee to deal with "Research using live animals".

Its more than just the US, many, if not all, large academic institutes have IRB in order to comply to ethical issues and requirements of international journals regarding human subjects

-1 This seems to be an anecdote rather than an answer to the question

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What are some guidelines to keep in mind when selecting members of one's PhD committee?
Selecting members of one's PhD committee is an important part of a PhD student's academic  development. Committee members can have considerable influence on a student's PhD program, such as determining what topics are on the student's prelims exams. However, sound advice on this process can be hard to find.
What are some guidelines to keep in mind when selecting members of one's PhD committee?
(This should be a generalized question useful for many different student-selected committee systems)

The Thesis Committee - The PHD Movie 2 is relevant here ;)

There are some general guidelines for choosing members of a PhD committee:

They should have some enthusiasm for the work that you do. If they're not invested in seeing you succeed, you won't get as much utility out of that committee member as someone else who might not be as knowledgeable, but is more committed.
They should have the time to be on your committee. If they're extremely busy, then it doesn't help to have them on a committee, because it will be difficult for them to attend the meetings—or it will make scheduling the meetings a nightmare.
They should not have conflicts with either you or your advisor. A thesis committee is already a somewhat political body. There's no need to add extra politics to the situation by having interpersonal or professional conflicts before the committee even begins to meet!
Collectively, there should not be a power "imbalance." If your advisor is a new assistant professor, don't overload the committee with a bunch of full professors holding named chairs, and vice versa.

When they will set preliminary exams, there's the additional qualification of:

The committee members should be familiar enough with your area that they know what it might make sense to test you on, but not so familiar with your work that they turn it into a "gotcha" game.

aeismail's post is very good, and just to add another few:

How difficult of a committee member are they? Some people will ask you to do far more work than others, and they typically have a reputation as such. It's worth trying to find that out and saving yourself the headache.
Many universities allow one or two committee members from outside the university. If there is a particular subject matter expert you would like to consult, feel free to ask them to serve on your committee... it  can help you build a relationship with them and get their feedback on your research.

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Am I allowed to show properly redacted exams to a colleague to determine if cheating occurred?
On an exam I recently administered, I discovered that several students had turned in essentially the same solutions for multiple questions. Before launching an academic dishonesty investigation, however, I want to make sure that it's not just "in my head" after reviewing too many exams in a row, or some other similar problem.
If I'm in the US, does the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) preclude me from showing a redacted version of the exam—one in which names and ID numbers have been removed, for instance—to a departmental colleague to get a second opinion? If so, then how can someone get a second opinion on whether everything is above board or not?

If the students studied together and expected such a question they would also have essentially the same answer. All roads lead to Rome.

FERPA permits education records to be shared with school officials who have a "legitimate educational interest" in them. Examples of a "legitimate educational interest" include (via University of Northern Iowa):

Performing appropriate tasks that are specified in his/her position description or by a contract agreement.
Performing a task related to a student's education.
Performing a task related to the discipline of a student.
Providing services for the student or the student's family, such as health care, counseling, job placement, or financial aid.

Also, if the student is not personally identifiable from the anonymized exam paper, then the papers are not protected by FERPA at all. Via Wayne State University:

With specific exceptions, FERPA defines “an educational record” quite broadly and it is not limited to “academic” records.  “Education records” include virtually all records maintained by an educational institution, in any format, that are “directly related” to one or more of its past or present students.  A record is “directly related” to a student if it is “personally identifiable” to the student. A record is “personally identifiable” to a student if it expressly identifies the student on its face by name, address, ID number, or other such common identifier.
A record is also personally identifiable if it includes “other information that, alone or in combination, is linked or linkable to a specific student that would allow a reasonable person in the school community, who does not have personal knowledge of the relevant circumstances, to identify the student with reasonable certainty” – in other words, if it contains enough demographic or other information that it points to a single student.


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How do I recommend a student requiring extended deadlines?
Some of my students get extended deadlines on assignments due to a disability. They are not required to tell me the nature of their disability (which may be physical, intellectual, or psychological), but some choose to do so. (United States faculty are legally required to grant accommodations to such students, who are certified by a college office that knows the details of their situation.)
My question is what to say when a student asks for a recommendation for an industry position (typically as a software engineer). I legally cannot reveal that they have a disability, but their ability to complete assignments correctly and on time is relevant to their qualifications for a job.
Update
To clarify, I don't consider it relevant to an employer if a student uses assistive technology or if the student takes extra time on exams, since the latter is an artificial situation irrelevant outside of school. (All of the exams I give are untimed anyway.) My concern is about students who are unable to complete assignments in the normal amount of time, which is always at least a week, even given any needed accommodations. The ability to complete work at the normal rate seems like it might be a bona fide occupational qualification.  Of course, it is not the employer's business whether the need for extra time is due to a disability.

You were already required to evaluate this student's work under the assumption that they performed under the same circumstances as everyone else, so why suddenly stop doing so at a recommendation letter?
That said, this quickly becomes a legal matter, and we have few true legal experts (for any jurisdiction) on this site.  I'm certainly not one of them, but here's my opinion and understanding...
The companies are not allowed to discriminate based on disabilities, and are required to make "reasonable accommodations" for them.  As such you can reasonably assume that whatever job is being applied for will already have this in effect, and that the disability is therefore irrelevant.
If, for some reason, the student is hiding their disability from potential employers—or, worse, had been faking it with the University—, then that is their responsibility, and the responsibilities of whatever (medical) professionals were involved in the evaluation, not yours.
If you remain in doubt—it would not be unreasonable to be confused on whether certain things you know about the student fall under "protected disability concerns" versus "legitimate, non-protected concerns"—, contact the very office that handles these disability arrangements, and possibly arrange to have a meeting where you can discuss these matters at length.  They should be able to provide you with guidance on how to faithfully execute your duties vis a vis recommendations while remaining in compliance.  You can even contact a lawyer for yourself, though you will likely have to pay for this.  The disabilities office will be inclined to advise you to act in whatever is most convenient for them and the university, which may be more strict than is legally required and enforceable, but in a case like this I would suggest you follow that because of:
The golden rule of writing a recommendation letter is: if you feel you cannot write a good recommendation letter for the student then reject their request to write one, and if you feel you cannot write a strong one then tell them so, so that they can decide if that is acceptable or not.
If you feel that these will automatically apply to you with respect to students with disabilities, you may want to (preemptively) arrange to speak with someone in the disabilities office, or a personal lawyer (this may be more strongly advisable in this situation), about writing letters for students with disabilities.  This would be to head off any potential concerns about you acting discriminatingly towards such students.

+1: Exactly. It is an institutional policy how to deal with that, not your decision. Generally, if extra time is allocated to them, then, if they perform as well in these circumstances/with these adjustments as non-disabled student in the regular time frame, that's the reference they should receive (modulo any adjustments that the disability office may or may not suggest to you).

Of course I decline to write letters that would be negative, although most honest letters (or informal recommendations) are a mix of positives and negatives.

Extra time used by virtue of a 504 plan is not relevant to, and should not be mentioned, in a letter of recommendation.
I checked http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/504faq.html and found a couple of relevant bits:

Equal access: equal opportunity of a qualified person with a disability to participate in or benefit from educational aid, benefits, or services.
Reasonable accommodation: a term used in the employment context to refer to modifications or adjustments employers make to a job application process, the work environment, the manner or circumstances under which the position held or desired is customarily performed, or that enable a covered entity's employee with a disability to enjoy equal benefits and privileges of employment.

If you're still not sure, you could contact your OCR regional office (http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/addresses.html, or email ocr@ed.gov) or your university's office for students with disabilities.
Side note:

"Of course I decline to write letters that would be negative, although most honest letters (or informal recommendations) are a mix of positives and negatives."

This concerns me.  I believe that if you have accepted the request to write a recommendation, it is up to you to use omissions to convey any weaknesses the student might have.  The letter of recommendation is not the place to point out what is often euphemistically called "areas of growth."

Thank you for finding a relevant government page, although you don't address that being able to complete an assignment in the usual amount of time might be a bona fide occupational qualification, for which discrimination is legal (i.e., I can legally be denied a job as a sperm donor, being unable to produce sperm). http://definitions.uslegal.com/b/bona-fide-occupational-qualification/

@espertus - For these fine points I suggest you talk to OCR or the office for students with disabilities.  I will add a link to my answer.

@espertus There is no way that you can tell exactly what an industrial employer wants from a particular applicant. That is for the employer's selection process to sort out. In a medium to large company, there is likely to be a very wide range of "time criticality" between different positions with the generic job title of "software engineer" - from "Of course I want it yesterday - if I wanted it today I would ask you tomorrow" to long term strategic tasks with timescales of months or years, not minutes.


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Adding a quiz to an application form
I have thought about setting up a quiz as part of a job application form (see background below for details), where I ask about 5 multiple-choice questions which are trivial to answer (or require a minimal Google search) for people in the right field, no more than 2-3 minutes altogether. These would require a significant amount of effort to answer for people without a matching background for the position, since they would need to Google around for a while until they find the correct answer. The application submission will be possible only to those whose answers are correct, effectively blocking many of the applicants with a background mismatch who do not want to spend this much time to apply for a position they're not qualified for (at least this is my hypothesis). That is, the job application form can only be submitted if the quiz answers are correct, in addition to having completed all other requirements (name, current institution, referees, etc.). Otherwise the form will return an error until all the answers are right.
I would like to know what are possible issues I should consider with this system logistically and, mostly, ethically (I cannot really think of ethical issues here, but that's why I'm asking, to make sure). I would also like to know whether I should expect some of the relevant candidates (i.e., those with a matching background) to get annoyed by this system.

Background
Every time I advertise a position (at the postdoc or PhD student levels) I get lots of applicants whose background doesn't match the requirements (with wide ranges of mismatch, from wrong subfield to wrong field). Some times this is obvious from the beginning, some times I need to read the application materials in more detail. These applicants often just copy-paste their application materials from some previous call, which generally means they put little effort into it.
I have a system in place to try and minimize the amount of spam/wrong background applications I get. Essentially, there are text fields where the applicants need to insert information, like a description of how they contributed to up to 5 publications. I use this system because 1) the effort is bigger than just attaching a precompiled PDF and deters the laziest applicants and 2) it is easy to quickly spot the most uninterested/unqualified applicants because they tend to leave the 5-publication fields empty.
Still, many bad applications make it through the system, and I end up spending lots of time sorting through applications with approximately zero chance of success. If I spend 10-15 minutes per bad application, going through it plus sending a rejection email to the applicant, it's still a significant amount of time (let's say I have to go through 20-30 of these, that means between half and a full day of work wasted on this, which I could have spent helping my group members with their research).
I want to avoid all of this wasted effort, since the situation is unfair to everyone involved, including those candidates with a matching background whose applications I need to review in less detail than I would like because those spam applications are sucking time away from it (I would say, for any given opening, I usually receive only about 30-40% of serious applications, meaning all strong and weak candidates with the correct background).

Finding good people is one of the most important tasks for a leader. In my first pass through an applicant pool I spend nowhere near 10 minutes per resume - that pass is to triage the pool. More time is then spent on the top third. If you want a good candidate, why is taking a day to find 2 or 3 people to interview a real problem?

@JonCuster The problem is not the time spent on the good ones, it's the time spent on the bad ones. I do spend a lot of time going through materials and interviewing them. I have had to redo application rounds in the past when I couldn't find a suitable candidate. Someone told me "hiring a bad candidate is worse than burning the money", and I agree.

It sounds like you want to filter applicants whose (lack of) experience precludes them from your positions. Have you made clear the expectations on your job ads and personal site? This is especially useful if you can make it clear the requirements come from you: too often applicants are used to ignoring high bars set when the advertiser and future manager are separate people. Furthermore, you could provide a link to the quiz (made fully optional) as a means for candidates to self-select. In general, I would assume good intentions on their behalf, so the problem might lie in presentation.

"That is, the job application form can only be submitted if the quiz answers are correct, [...] Otherwise the form will return an error until all the answers are right." can they just brute force the answer until it's submitted?

@cole A self assessment is something I've also considered. The expectations are clearly stated in the ad. I think the volume of applications from mismatched background applicants comes from their expectation that they have a non-zero chance of getting the job, and that if they send literally hundreds of applications they will eventually get a position. E.g., I do computational physics, and this is clearly stated in the ads through the job description and requirements, still I get many applications from people who have never run a simulation nor used a Linux command terminal.

@AndrewT. Yes, there would be nothing preventing a stubborn user from submitting, if they're willing to throw enough time at it. My idea is not to prevent people from applying, but rather to discourage those applicants who are mass applying to every ad that shows up in their job ad feeds, my assumption being that they can't afford (or don't want) to spend 30 minutes or 1h per application.

And if the questions and their solutions are static, no one is prevented from publishing and sharing them anonymously though.

If you do add this quiz to your application form, I suggest making it clear to the applicant that the quiz is intended as a "spam filter". If I were to submit an application to a position I'm qualified for, and had to answer a "trivial" quiz, I'd be a bit worried. I might assume I'm overqualified, or the person doing the recruitment has no idea what level of qualification is required, or my future colleagues will not be qualified enough, etc.

Check with your HR dept to see what their recommendation is re rejection letters. Here in North America, it has not been the norm since last century to send letters to applicants who have not been interviewed. You're being flooded because it is now so very easy to spam applications to dozens of random employers, so the employer's processes need to evolve accordingly.

Language nitpick: In some English-speaking countries (e.g. the UK), what you're describing is usually called a test (or, if more formal, an exam); a quiz is generally for entertainment.

Frankly, if I were a good candidate for your position, I might find it insulting and look elsewhere.
Note that if you try to automate the hiring process in some way, even partially, you will get both false positives and false negatives. The false negatives are something you really want to avoid if you are looking for good candidates. And those who look elsewhere are a lost opportunity.
If you are going to spend a few years working with whomever you hire then spending time in selection is reasonable. Make it seem friendly, not unfriendly.
You could, perhaps, depending on rules in place, even get others in the lab help with the initial sorting.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Advertising a position is a bureaucratic process with serious regulatory, legal, and university policy implications. If I were you, I would absolutely refrain from implementing any creative, nonstandard idea like what you’re describing without running it by your university’s HR department and getting them to approve it.
Even if HR approves it, as others have said, it may simply be a poor recruitment strategy. Mainly, I think it would be a way of signaling to prospective applicants that you are the kind of boss who considers his own time too precious to spend on the tedious but necessary work of filtering out unqualified candidates for the position you are advertising, but would happily waste the time of people lower than him on the career ladder.
If you only want to recruit people who have low enough levels of self esteem to consider working for such a boss, then sure, your strategy sounds great…

I think one important question you have to ask yourself is would this system have prevented any of the actual people you hired (and are happy with) from getting their position / applying for their position? Maybe you could even make the effort and ask them.
And while I get your frustration with applicants that do not fit the bill, some that may be from a field that is not 100% percent yours might in the end still be the right candidate and even bring in new ideas that a person with the "correct" background would not be able to see because of being to focused on one topic. A system like the one you proposed could be detrimental for applications of such persons.

I think this is an interesting viewpoint against implementing the quiz, +1.

I partially agree with Buffy's answer, although I would not use the word offended, rather irritated. If they would be super easy for me to answer I would wonder where the catch is (and probably not realize that they might be hard to answer for people outside the field).
Something to consider as well: Multiple (or single choice) questions are hard to pose in an unambiguous way, making them sometimes quite hard to answer. If this would happen, and I would fail for such a reason (assuming I would be a good fit), I would try to submit 2, maybe 3 times and then give up. Others might beat the system by submitting 20 times or just being better at googling stuff than me. From this I would say adding this might only cause good applicants to reconsider and the resilient ones to apply nevertheless. In any case, if you do this I would let people send in their first guess (no rejecting of wrong answers). Then you can look into the applications ranked by number of correctly answered questions.
You mentioned questions about e.g. contributions to papers. Could you maybe just extend this and ask another question like: How would your current learnings from your papers would help you for research in my group/the project you are applying for? Or something like: How would you approach Task X (where X is a task the prospective student would work on), specify some specific methods and how they would help you in doing X successfully.
I would guess such questions immediately show you who made an effort to look into the research of your group and think how they can really apply their skills for you. In addition the answers also already show you a little bit about the candidate and their motivation.

“Multiple (or single choice) questions are hard to pose in an unambiguous way” — indeed. And it can be really frustrating trying to second-guess which of the wrong answers the setter thought was correct (or vice versa). Or what hidden assumptions or misunderstandings there might be.

TL;DR: You have to deal with both, the imposters and those suffering from the imposter syndrome. If your quiz shall weed out the former, it will likely deter the latter.
Just as there are many applicants who are overly optimistic regarding their suitability for a job (i.e., the ones you wish to filter out), there are also many applicants who are overly pessimistic.
(These pessimists are over-proportionally from disadvantaged groups who have been subtly indoctrinated that they are less capable all their life, e.g., women.)
In particular in academia, where jobs are highly specialised and no candidate checks all the boxes, it is a challenge to make pessimists apply even if they are not a perfect match, lest you have to pick a far worse optimist.
If your quiz shall be any effective in weeding out the overly optimistic, it will likely also deter pessimists. For example, a pessimist may have the following thoughts triggered by your quiz:

“Why waste time and effort on a decent application if it may be filtered out automatically due to some mistake?”

“I don’t know this from the top of my head; I am certainly not qualified.” (In particular with respect to your remark that may “require a minimal Google search”.)

“There are almost certainly some questions in here that shall trick the candidate in choosing a naïve but wrong answer. I found all the answers straightforward so I almost certainly did it wrong.”

“I am not sure about the answer to that one question; I will certainly fail the quiz and I am not qualified anyway.”

Mind that these won’t be false negatives in the sense that they fail the quiz; these will be people who don’t apply at all.
(I here assume that applicants know about the quiz before they write the application, which seems unavoidable to me; otherwise you have people failing because of a lack of time, etc.)
Of course, by making your quiz relatively easy, you can ameliorate the aforementioned problems, but this comes at the expense of being worse at weeding out the overly optimistic or a lot of effort to design the quiz – which I don’t expect to be worth it.

If you have a lot of applicants, you could make it a game.
This is something that is sometimes done by cybersecurity national organizations  - they create a treasure hunt-like set of chained questions that end up with the Graal: the application page.
Of course, this is very much aligned with the mindset of these people: they love to investigate. If your area of work is similar it could work.

Otherwise please don't, you will lose possibly good candidates. Just make sure that in the job ad you have a set of points such as

If you

know what a zigrob is, and you built at least a type A or B ...
... speak Blazarith fluently ...
... used a gripth measuring device in a zufl context ...

then we need you! We offer ...

You could ask in the application form for some information about these points (though it is highly unusual) and in any case during the interview you know where to start and cut short if it does not go well.

Emphasis on a lot, Google and Microsoft can get away with convoluted hiring processes because they are household names. For certain cybersecurity jobs it's part of their job to investigate and dig into servers and they might even enjoy an open invitation to "hack" (it shows trust from the employer, unauthorized hacking is usually a 'jail time' kind of offense). Personally I would click off of any application that involved puzzles or games; I enjoy games, trivia, tangents, and puzzles but not if they are forced. If you do it in an application it's not a game, it's an exam.

To me, both the question and the other answers seem to be addressing the wrong problem. I think the real problem is here:

I end up spending lots of time sorting through applications with approximately zero chance of success. If I spend 10-15 minutes per bad application, going through it plus sending a rejection email to the applicant, it's still a significant amount of time (let's say I have to go through 20-30 of these, that means between half and a full day of work wasted on this...

I would suggest that two minutes is enough to spot most obviously bad applications (i.e., the ones you propose filtering out via technical means). Two minutes of concentrated effort is actually a lot -- even if an application has some subtleties, you should be able to understand the situation within two minutes. And remember, competitive applicants will go out of their way to make it clear why they want to work with you -- if you spend two full minutes reviewing an application and it still seems like the application is not even close to competitive, then it's very unlikely that further review would lead to a good hire.
You also mention sending a rejection email to the applicant. While this is a nice courtesy, I would argue that it is not necessary for applicants who manifestly do not meet the basic requirements of the job. People in a different field, for example, are basically spamming you by sending out applications scattershot; there is no need to further waste your time with a rejection e-mail. If rejection emails are required in your part of the world, I would send them as a batch -- one e-mail bcc'd to all these applicants. Of course, I encourage you to continue sending personalized rejections to candidates who made a real effort.
Now your actual question was about implementing a quiz on the application form. I would argue that you've already done that with your requirement that applicants answer individualized questions. Whether this is a good idea is debatable (if a qualified applicant leaves these questions blank, what do you do? If you interview them anyway, the questions are a waste of everyone's time; if you reject them flat out, you risk losing a good hire). But setting this aside, it seems like you've already defined a filter. All that's left to do is to actually use this filter on your side, spending little or no time on applicants that do not provide satisfactory answers to these questions.

You should always send rejection emails. It is quite rude to the applicant not to - they might be a bad fit, but they might not know themselves

Please see my penultimate paragraph.....while I agree with you for "serious" applicants, if someone (for example) without a science degree applies for a chemistry post-doc and makes no attempt to address the mismatch, then there is no need to respond to this spam, IMO. This may seem harsh if you don't realize how many people send off low-quality applications where it is obvious they have not even read the job posting.

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How Good Is A Recommendation Letter For MS in CS From A Workplace If It's Coming From A Mentor?
I have 3 years of work experience in cloud computing and virtualization and am intending to illuminate this in my SOP. With what degree of credibility will the above mentioned work experience be accepted by admissions committees if I do not have any letter from my workplace at all? Also, since it is difficult for me to get a recommendation from my immediate manager at my workplace, if at all I do get one from my company, it may be from a colleague who was my mentor (no managerial role). How good will such a recommendation be? I already have two recommendations from my college professors, each of which highlight one of my two research publications. It is for the third recommendation that I have the choice between this letter from my mentor at my workplace and from an assistant professor at my college who had taught me in a number of courses and labs. Which recommendation should I go forward with? Please advise on these matters.

I review applications to our master's program, and it would seem strange to us if someone with years of work experience did not include a letter from their workplace. I don't think it would matter much to us whether it came from their mentor or their manager. It's useful to us to know that someone can show up for work every day and do what they're supposed to. Presumably your mentor can say that and more.

Unless the MS is very applied, I'd think that an additional academic recommendation would be better. That is especially true if they can speak to different aspects of your work.
But a letter from a mentor should, in general, be fine. It might even be better than one from a manager as the person likely has more knowledge of you and your contributions. The letter from a manager is likely to be a bit pro forma. The recommender should be clear about the relationship (i.e. mentor, not manager).

Thank you for your answer. One concern that I have is : if I don't get any LOR from my company, how credible will the work experience mentioned in my SOP be from an admission committee's perspective?

Speaking from UK institution experience, candidates who have "real world" experience in roles relevant to their Masters course tend to be favoured much more than students who are applying directly from undergradute, as it shows that you've put thought and consideration into your choice of course and so are more unlikely to drop out.
I would argue that your mentor, and so someone who likely interacts with you much more often than your manager probably does, would likely count more towards your recommendation anyway, as it is more bespoke. I would advise to go with the current choice of 2x academic and 1x professional, otherwise it may come across as a little peculiar that you have this 3 year work experience but no one to recommend you from that role/institution.

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Impact of the Designation of the Recommender for a Workplace LOR for MS
I have 2 years of work experience in the CS field and am now intending to apply for my masters. Since I am a bit nervous about contacting my manager for a LOR (since I am not sure of the consequences), I was thinking of asking a colleague in my team, who was my mentor. This person has seen my work from up close and hence would be able to write thoroughly about my qualities. However, the designation of this person is Senior Engineer (lower than that of team lead or manager). Would this be a significant reason to devalue the letter and should I instead go for a letter from my manager, notwithstanding the risks?

Why wouldn't you ask your manager?

Not that my relationship with my manager is bad or that he does not have a high opinion of my work. But basically, I am worried about how he might react to my plans of leaving the organisation and how that might affect my work. The main objective of my question though, was about the implications of a lor from my mentor, as mentioned above.

While a letter from the manager is probably a bit better, I doubt that the marginal difference is what will put you over the line for acceptance or hold you back. I assume that you have plenty of other aspects to your background that makes you suitable for the new degree. So make sure that your letters and CV stress those positive aspects.
However, if you are committed to leaving, then the reaction of your manager probably means less, as long as he/she is honorable. "Sorry to see this employee go" is a fairly good thing to see in a letter. But you have to judge the overall effect as you know the person.
Just make sure that everything else is enough to make you acceptable as a candidate. Then the letter from the colleague should be fine, and, as you say, they have better knowledge of your contributions.


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Is generic "thank you" email a waste of time in academia?
A very busy professor just responded my email. He answered my questions, and in the end, he explicitly said something like "Please let me know if you have any questions" or "Please respond if you have further questions".
So, I am trying to think as if I am in his shoe. Is he not expecting me to reply to this email, if I do not have any further questions?
Is it impolite if I do not respond to this email and let it go? Or, is it considered impolite if I spam his "already-too-full" mailbox with a generic "Dear XXX, Thanks for XXXXX, Regards, XXXX" ?

Reply and thank him. Don't overthink these things.

I think this question gets to something at the heart of learning how to navigate a rank hierarchy as a confident, considerate adult. It can be hard to learn the difference between respecting someone else and disrespecting yourself. Devaluing yourself leads people to assume their actions are mostly disruptive and they should avoid interacting unless it's absolutely necessary.

Does anybody not appreciate being thanked?

@MatthewLeingang I am sure the answer is yes. I understand your point but the counterargument is that many "thank you"s are just a way of being polite, done totally automatically without any thought. Some professors do seem to prefer the most concise communication, with only occasional thank-yous; and this has the advantage that when you do say "thank you", it comes off as really sincere.

@MatthewLeingang, just a few weeks ago there was another HNQ on this site, about something else, where the author mentioned that he might send a "thank you" email to a professor. One of highly upvoted answers, included "professors mailboxes are already very busy without you wasting their time with a empty thank you" or something along those lines.

I think it's close enough to come to personal preference. Nobody is going to to resent you for sending a thank you, or not. Personally I prefer to dispense with cumbersome politeness. For simple queries ("What is the status of X?") I sign with "thanks in advance".

I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. Have we really ventured that far from basic, every day common sense here?

Try walking in his shoes instead of thinking in them. Probably a bit stinky in there

‘Is generic “thank you” email a waste of time in academia?’ Where in the world is avoiding saying thank you considered a good thing? And why would academia be any different.

Possible duplicate of Etiquette on sending a thank you e-mail to respondents who gave me helpful information

@AndrewSavinykh May I ask what is a "HNQ" you mentioned and what is the title/link of that question you mentioned so I can take a look?

If you send a thank-you note, in addition to being polite, you let the professor know that you received their email and don't need anything else from them. That lets them avoid trying to follow up with you later.

This is a good, practical reason for why sending a quick thank you is helpful. I send lots of emails in my job, and when I don't get a response I tend to wonder if anyone got it, if it was useless, etc. When I do get a quick thank you, it takes me all of 2 seconds to read and delete/archive and now I'm freed from thinking about it in the future.

So much this. It is not the thank you that I appreciate most, but the acknowledgement. Whether or not this particular professor will care in this particular case, it is generally incensing when you do care. The fact that the text is "thank you" rather than "receipt acknowledged" is icing on the cake. And, well, it doesn't hurt, does it?

A thank you for a quick response is usually appreciated to show that the time spent was worthwhile. It makes people feel better. So there's absolutely no reason not to send one, if you so choose.
The formality of your email should be relative to where you are: if you expect formality (as in Germany), you'd still include the "Dear X" header; in places where it's less formal, such as many US universities, you can dispense with the salutation.

I agree but I'd provide more guidance -- the short version of a thank-you email dispenses with the big greeting.  It can be short and sweet, e.g. Thanks for the link -- looks extremely helpful.  (For example.)

Depends on where you are: for instance, in the US, sure; in Germany, probably not.

The reason not to send one is if the message conveys 0 information and wastes their time. But it depends on the conversation. If it was a simple query->response,  a standalone thank you is unnecessary. If it was a multipart conversation, with investment on both sides, it is definitely warranted.

Indeed. I start to always send out Thank-you mails after one professor followed-up one of his un-responded email.

Professors receive hundreds of emails every day. Adding a dozen thank-you emails won't help them to scan their emails for stuff they need to know or need to answer.
I'd propose to save the thank you for the next time you meet them in class or on the hallway. Still polite, but not a waste of their time.

I'm almost tempted to say that the satisfaction of being able to click an email and realize that it needs no extra handling (like a thank-you email) might outweigh the extra burden of clicking on it...

The burden of having to sift through reams of email trying to pick out the ones you think are important enough to read is FAR, FAR greater than Mehrdad/Najib perceive. Additionally, some people are interrupted from their work when email arrives. Thus, it is absolutely an annoyance to click on an email to find that the only reason for its existence is Thanks. In the business world, it is understood by nearly everybody not to do that. With that said, if you really feel that a person went above and beyond then you should send a corresponding above and beyond thank you if you choose to send one.

Seeing how its 2018 and most, if not all, email clients have threads, I dont see how responding with an "thank you" could prevent the busy professor to scan their emails efficiently.

@Jakob I don't see how threading improves things in this case. You still have to read the e-mail to tell if it contains "thank you" or a page full of text describing a major problem.

@Dunk But who is Mehrdad and Najib? It is my first time hearing about them. Are you sure that in business world people never do simple "Thank-you"?

tl;dr- Usually it should be okay to send a concise thank-you email.

Three categories:

Most recipients would likely enjoy a concise thank-you email for the reasons others have mentioned: the cost to them is pretty low while the appreciation can be nice.
Some recipients may really enjoy a thank-you email.  Especially if they're having a bad day and just need a distraction, a little gesture like that can mean a lot.
Some recipients are so flooded by emails that they end up not even reading a lot of their mail.  They're unlikely to get mad at anyone for sending them a nice thank-you email, however it'd still be easier for them to not get anything unnecessary.

Usually, it's probably safe enough to send a concise thank-you email.  It'll backfire only a bit in the case of Category (3), which is probably the least common case, and even then it seems unlikely to be any sort of significant issue.
It's probably hard to guess who might fall into Category (3) unless you personally know them.

Most of the professors I know are of category (3). So no; don't write emails.

@usr1234567 While that was my first thought, too, I suspected that individuals tend to have pretty significant sampling bias.  Category (3)'s likely more common at competitive research institutions, while Categories (1) and (2) may be more prevalent at non-competitive research institutions and non-research institutions.

@usr1234567 Yes, I agree. Most of the professors and almost all of the big professors are at category (3).

@Nat Even if it is a non-competitive institute at USA, the professor is still likely to receive a lot of communication from students interested in research all over the world. Hell, even some postdocs with a few publication receive tons of emails.

It depends on how much work the professor put in to their message.
If you asked

What is the weight of an unladen African swallow?

and the professor responded, two months later,

As your question interested me greatly, I just went on a field trip to find out. Draft paper attached.

then of course a "Thank you" is appropriate.
The opposite situation is when thinking about and archiving your "Thank you" email would take a significant percentage of time compared to the time it took to answer your question in the first place.

Send the thank-you.
I'm not in academia but I often write emails to colleagues to explain concepts or systems that aren't specifically my area but where I hope to be helpful. I put a lot of thought into the them and try to provide a useful explanation and reference info.
Commonly I'll send a write-up to a whole team and get no feedback. I wonder for a moment if it was worth anyone's time to read it through, then shrug and move on. It's useful to have written the explanation because it's good practice and helps to organize my own thoughts, so I don't generally sweat it.
But occasionally I'll get a quick thank-you. Or months later someone will casually mention that my email has become their go-to reference for details on the topic. And that gives me motivation to keep researching and sharing knowledge.
when you take time out to help someone, move on, and then find out that you've made an impact, it's a really nice moment.

"... if you have questions ..." states a condition to be satisfied if you wish to respond. Therefore, if you have no further questions, you need not respond. Someone has to end an email exchange and in this case he ended it, unless you have more questions.

I enjoyed reading the back-and-forth here in the thread, and I especially like the point about considering the depth of the response and how specifically it fit with the sender’s question.
Something I find unconscionably rude is a scenario
like this:
Student sends detailed email with multiple questions.
I take the time to craft a specific, point-by-point response that addresses each part of the student’s question, along with stat examples and/or code (I teach Data Science)
30 mins later student writes ANOTHER detailed series of questions, with a new subject line and NO acknowledgement of my previous answers.
I’m not even necessarily going for a ‘thank you’ here - even a ‘got it’ would go a long way.  This isn’t the right way to behave with anyone - peer, senior, or subordinate.
My way of handling this is to simultaneously teach some manners and pump the brakes on the exchange. I ask them to clarify whether they received the first one, mention that i can check with IT if there might be a problem with messages going through, etc. and then wait for that response before diving into the next round.

I agree. Acknowledgement is always appreciated!


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A course-based letter from a named professor or a research letter from a young no-name researcher?
I can get a letter from a course instructor that I got a highest possible grade. He is a very well known professor at a top 5 institute. Of course, he can say little about my research.
I can also get a letter from my research collaborator who just got his PhD from a not-so-famous school. We worked on three papers so he can definitely comment my research in details. He is an assistant professor in a research-focused school rank at 100.
Which one is better for a research (PhD) program?
The program I am applying to requires two letters. The first letter is from a big name who I've done research with.

Why not both?  .

@AnonymousPhysicist One slot left

Who got the other two slots? Balance is important...

Also, what is the current job title of the recent PhD? Letters from post-docs or recent PhDs who have left academia carry ~no weight, in my experience. If he is already a professor, that's a different matter

Assuming you cannot submit both, I would go for the second one. You are applying to a research program and have research experience: the committee are going to be interested in that. If the committee is interested in your grades, they can already see them in your transcript.


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Results published by others first in parallel. Is my work still publishable?
I am a college student who worked on a small problem in applied mathematics for two years. I recently get together some results that could be sent to publish. However when I am finishing  my draft I find a work published in a decent journal six days ago solving almost the same problem.
What can I do? The math problem is very specific so I cannot change the problem a little bit to make my work unique.
Explanation for the "almost": The abstraction/essence of the problem is exactly the same. However, since this applied math problem has been applied to many fields of science, our story and approach are completely different. I said "almost" because the core problem is the same. However, the main problem is associated with some peripheral problems that are not that important. We have done different extensions.

I wonder if you could explain the word "almost" more. Maybe you can still get the work published by refocusing the story on the aspects where the problems differ.

I would definitely advise to upload it to ArXiv with a note that a similar result was obtained independently and simultaneously by such-and-such group.

@lighthousekeeper Explained!

Is your solution to the problem the same as the recently published work? Does it use the same methods, etc.? If not your solution may have independent value.

So, they seem to be about 6 months or more ahead of you as they have published while you have not sent a paper for peer review. I suggest you focus on either improving this paper or a new topic.

@mmeent Not the same method/approach

Get personalized advice from a professor at your college. It sounds like your current problem is not publishable anymore since you've been preempted. Still, there could be a way to spin it so that it's still publishable (the fact that you're using it in a different field is a good sign), and if so a professor at your college who can examine the problem and the proof firsthand is the best-positioned person to help.

It's not wise to submit it now. Apart from that, I don't know what to advise. Keep this work at the back of your head and move on with other work. Perhaps someday you may get more ideas to improve upon this work. Positive thing is, your problem is right, publishable and you are one of the very few who were able to solve it. So one day it will be useful to you.

I do like this answer *in combination * with lighthouse keeper's comment.

You do not explain why you think it is not wise to submit now.

@mmeent: I mean it is not wise to be in a hurry to submit something that you are not sure of getting accepted. Put it in the back burner and publish when there is something that is substantially different from the published result.


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"Awaiting AE decision" has lasted for nearly four months. What should I do?
The status of my manuscript is "Awaiting AE decision", and it has lasted for nearly four months.
I have sent two pieces of mail to AE to inquire of the status, but I have not received any reply.
What does this situation mean? What should I do?
..While, I am still waiting, no reply.

Contact the editor!

@Aditya: Should I contact the Editor in Chief? I have contacted the associate editor twice, but I did not receive any reply.

In some journals there is a senior editor who oversees different areas; othrers simply have an editor in chief who oversees everything. Depending on the journal contact one of these to check the status of your paper.

You may wish to clarify in your post the entire timeline of your submission. E.g., is this an initial submission? What is the total amount of time since your initial submission? On some systems, the status of a manuscript is not necessarily indicative of where it is in the system.

The initial version of this manuscript was submitted last year. It has gone through two rounds of peer reviews. The last version was resubmitted on May this year. I have sent a mail to EIC two days ago.  He has informed the AE. Now, the only thing I can do is wait.

It could mean they're overworked or disorganized. Four months seems substantial.  Maybe you could try a phone call.

Thank you for your opinion.
Since I am not a native English speaker, I am afraid that I can not explain the whole things clearly through the phone.
Maybe I should contact the editor in chief by e-mail and cc to AE. But I am not sure whether it is polite. This paper really means a lot to me.

A polite email inquiry can't do any harm.  (I thought you had already tried email, sorry.)

I have sent two mails to the AE. But I did not receive any reply.

Right, so now you propose to try emailing the editor in chief.  Sure.  Make it short and polite.  Ex. subject=status report of (paper)? // "I'm concerned about my (date) submission, which was confirmed on (date).  I have not had any news about it since.(date).  I have written to (name) on (date) and (date), but have not heard back from him/her..  Can you tell me what sort of time frame to keep in mind as I am awaiting news of my submission?  Thank you very much.  Sincerely, (full name)  It's an example, you don't have to stick to this phrasing or structure.

I have sent a mail to the EIC. Now, all I can do is crossing my fingers.

Four months seems unreasonable. Either the AE is on leave or having a holiday trip with family or health issues. Anything is possible. However, it is the responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief to deal with such delays.
I would email (a final reminder email) to EIC, AEs and journal support staff regarding this and wait for a week to hear from them back on my email. If still, they are not responding, I will email them saying that "I am withdrawing the paper from your esteemed journal. Thank you for your earlier consideration."
Please note that there is no bottom by clicking which you can withdraw the paper. So, be careful about it and try to make it as transparent as possible that you are withdrawing the paper because of the valid reason. Don't be greedy that if the paper is accepted after your mail, if at-all it gets accepted, you will go with acceptance. No, you can't. You should stick with your decision of withdrawl.

This paper really means a lot to me. I do not think I have the courage to withdraw it. I have sent a mail to EIC two days ago. Hope it would be helpful.

Actually, I have spent five months and one year to deal with this paper.

Then you should wait and watch.

Yeah. Hope this paper could be accepted. Thank you for your help!


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Letter of support for promotion to full professor from an "unusual" student
A professor (currently Associate Professor) I used to collaborate with is being considered for the promotion to "full Professor". The Department asked me to write a letter supporting the professor's promotion as former student.
I am super happy to be able to support this promotion because I have a great opinion of this scholar and I genuinely think it is fully deserved, but I have few concerns:

I am just a postdoc, and usually referral letters are asked to other professors (ok, it's true I was asked as former student).
I have not been formally student of this person, neither I was enrolled in that university. I was doing my PhD in another university in the same city and just met the professor casually due to common friends and interests. The professor became my PhD co-advisor, but this was mainly to acknowledge the nice discussions and ideas exchanges we had over lunch about my work, more than a formal collaboration.
we did not publish papers together.

That told, I am wondering whether I should be really writing this letter, and, in the positive case, what kind of shape I should give to my message.

I think you are overthinking things, given that they explicitly asked you to write this letter.

@xLeitix, In principle I agree with you: I was thinking of the possible ethical implications of this specific case, and in general I would not like to contribute in something potentially harmful for the promotion. Not being myself in academia I have little experience in these kinds of referral processes and I just wanted to have a more informed opinion

In the message asking you for a letter, were there no guidelines about what they were looking for?  If not, they will perhaps be provided to you after you accept or you can ask.

The message was quite short and open, it does not really provide a guidance in the kind of information requested. I will definitely ask more info, but my point is more on the issue of referring the teaching activities of someone to whom I have not been student. That's my main concern.

Well, do you feel you are able to say good things about how much they helped you as a co-advisor?

It's worth considering that declining to offer a reference may be seen as not supporting the professor/having nothing good to say about them, even if the real reason is just that you don't feel that you have standing.  Better to offer a letter that speaks to what you know about this person (however limited) than to decline to be a reference, if you believe they deserve the promotion.

There's a good chance that this professor's department's or university's policy is to send requests for letters to every recent student of a faculty member who's up for a promotion.  Look for an official document called something like "appointment and tenure policy" on the department's website; if you can't find anything relevant there, go up to the university level or the "school" level and look some more.  To give you an idea of what they're like, here's the appointment and tenure policy document for my university.
Don't second-guess whether you were enough this person's student for your opinion to be helpful.  The promotion committee thinks so; that's what matters.  (Was this person an official member of your thesis committee?  If so that's plenty good enough for most departments.)
Do be honest about the depth and breadth of your interaction with them.  For instance, you could lead off with "I have known Dr. Lastname for 3 years.  I was never enrolled in any of their classes nor did I have very much interaction with their research group at $UNIVERSITY, but we regularly met over that time to discuss the research leading to my dissertation on $TOPIC."  And then go on to talk about how they helped you with your dissertation.

+1 for most of this, but in your suggested opening, I’d want to switch it round to emphasise the positive side, e.g.: “We met regularly during that time to discuss the research leading to my dissertation on $TOPIC, though I was not enrolled in any of their classes nor did I directly interact much with their research group at $UNIVERSITY."

The department asked you to write because they want your opinion.  Of course they also asked others.  If they do not ask you specific questions, then just give the reasons for

I am super happy to be able to support her/his promotion because I have a great opinion of her/him and I genuinely think s/he deserves that,

If they do include specific questions in their letter to you, then answer those, or explicitly say "I cannot answer question 3 because...".

Since you and the professor collaborated on things and you are happy about the result presumably, just describe the collaboration and what it meant for you. I think that in this particular university teaching and fostering students is valued. In some places it is valued more than research, actually.
So, if you think the professor has helped you along toward a career as an academic through your joint work (or otherwise) you can write about that.
The fact that you are "just" a post-doc may be an advantage. It will give variety to the professors promotion dossier. Others will contribute from different perspectives.
Just be honest.

This kind of thing is becoming more common. I have heard it referred to as 360 degree assessment. It doesn't replace the more traditional 'top-down' assessment but the thought - I gather - is that it adds extra information and gives a different perspective to the people making the decision.
For an example of why this might work: most people are not too reluctant to help their boss. If you are difficult with everyone else though, it's not always the case your boss will notice this and couldn't tell whoever is reviewing the promotion.
If there's no other reason to worry, I wouldn't read any more into this than: it's a new thing they're doing.

I think that if you think he should be promoted and they asked then go ahead even though your experience with them was casual it shows that he influenced your life. It shows that they went above and beyond and he loves to help people.  If he has such an impact on you, a non-student just imagine the impact he will have on his actual students.  Teachers like this are rare nowadays.

I've had a professor ask me for a letter before (decades ago).  He was up for a major award. I was post bachelors, not even in grad school yet (in industry).
Be a big person and just help the fellow out.  Don't underestimate yourself or your ability to make contributions, regardless of seniority.  Life comes at you fast...in a few years, it will be normal.


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e-mailing a professor: first lines of an email (US/UK)
Not being a native speaker of English, I would like to know how to best introduce myself, what sounds too formal, and what is maybe a bit too colloquial. I have a few questions I want to ask, but I am not sure how to start the email in the first place.
Since many people have pointed out the culture dependency of the question, I would like to make clear that I am concerned with the US / UK, or roughly the English speaking academic world.
Also, for future, subsequent emails, can I just start the email with things like:
Dear John,
How are you? ...

Dear John,
I hope all is well in Brighton. ...

Dear John,
I hope you are doing good! ...

This is really a general etiquette question.  The answer depends on your culture, your recipient's culture, the relationship between you, your mood, the tone of your message, etc, etc.  But it has almost nothing to do with academia; the recipient just so happens to be a professor, but that has little effect on the answer.  There isn't some universal email etiquette followed by professors throughout the world; they use the same etiquette as others in their culture.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about etiquette and not specific to academia.

Just want to point one thing out (and this may be the only thing that's academia-related): until the professor asks you to address him/her differently, always address them as "Prof. [Last name]". Don't just "Dear John" him because it can come off as disrespectful to some people.

@Penguin_Knight I have always addressed my professors by their first names. It would surely be weird to change this now?

@NateEldredge just because etiquette is found in areas other than academia, does not make it less relevant to academia. I also don't think that etiquette is the same in academia as in other areas of life. I also never said that there must be some universal rules to academia, but this also does not mean that there aren't some guidelines to think about, especially with regards to academia.

As Nate pointed out it's culture dependent. If you have been calling him John, then no need to shift back. But if you have never wrote to the person, it's safer to be more formal and address them with Prof. first. At least that is the case in the US.

And I agree on this point with Nate. However, I don't see a problem with asking a question about the anglo-american academic world in particular. It might not be relevant to all of academia, but I believe it's relevant enough for this (after all english-speaking) board.

#ProfessorsAreJustPeople.

Please note the meaning of professor differs substantially between the US and UK. From what I understand almost any lecturer can be called professor in the US while it is one of the senior ranks of academia in the UK and by no means given to all or even most academic staff.

For the first communication, address the person as "Prof. [Lastname]" and keep doing so until the person says something like "Please call me John."
In the US, a common first liner for initial communication is "I hope this e-mail finds you well."
"I hope you are doing good!" should be "I hope you are doing well." Try to suppress the use of exclamation marks and save them for things that are really worth exclaiming about.
As for subsequent e-mails, what you're saying in the main message is a lot more important. A "Dear Prof. [Last name]" followed by a succinct statement about the main points would usually be sufficient as the start.

Thanks for your answer. As regards 4): so I would just jump straight into the issues / topics? as regards 1): I have already addressed all of my professors by their first names. Surely, I cannot switch back now? Or what would you advise?

It's like a "level up" system. Once you have reached the first name phase you don't need to shift back in personal communications. Most, and I cannot speak for all, faculty members are busy and their inbox overflowing. It's usually better to hop onto the main point so that the person know if he/she can deal with it now or triage for later. (And I'm speaking based on my experience in the US). The same behavior, however, can be seen as rude in other countries.

I am talking about US/UK, so I find this quite valuable advice. (I myself am from neither of these countries). I will also change my question to state that I am focusing on the anglo-american / english speaking world

I'm in the UK. If the email is about "work", I would skip the "How are you"/"I hope this finds you well"/etc and get straight to the point. Otherwise, I might read as far as "How are you", decide this was just "social chat", and move to the next email in my inbox! (And if the email is about "work", make sure the title is a clear description of what it is about).

The "Hope you are doing well" is unnecessary for someone you don't know. Get to the point. (Northern American prof here)


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How difficult is it to get PhD funding for the Humanities (UK)?
How difficult is it to get PhD funding for the Humanities in the UK? Specifically, let's say I am targeting top-tier universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, and UCL for the Humanities. I got a First and have already done some graduate work on a masters level. However, I am not exceptional, i.e. I do not have Firsts/A+ in every subject. Is there an approximate number of how many people who get admitted to Oxford then also receive funding? How many international students receive funding (in %), etc. as opposed to EEA (which I am)? Anything like this would be helpful.
In case it's relevant, assume that my PhD thesis topic is interesting, but not of exceptional value to society or exceptionally novel (novel enough for a PhD, but not revolutionizing the field say).

What kind of answer are you looking for? "Very difficult" vs "not very difficult"? "8 out of 10 difficult"? Also, this will probably depend on exact specialization, how flexible you are on the specific university (would any university do, or only Oxbridge), the quality and relevance of your previous work, etc.

you are right, I will specify things further.

To be clear, are you an EEA student? This will determine whether the answer to your question is "very difficult" or "almost impossible".

I am. However, with the Brexit happening I am not sure whether this will mean as much in the coming years?

To be blunt and clear, if your PhD topic is neither particularly novel nor of exceptional value, you are almost certainly not going to be awarded PhD funding in the Humanities in the UK: not at Oxbridge, not anywhere. It simply will not happen. PhD funding in UK humanities is limited at best, cutthroat in reality, and non-existent at worst. We have to turn down scores of projects that are truly important and valuable due to lack of funding for students: a mediocre topic has no chance. This is the same at Oxbridge as it is the same for everywhere else in the UK.
If a prospective student has everything else in line (e.g. they have a first, they have UK/EU student status so they can go in for UKRI funding), they need to work on coming up with an exceptional project. Even if they are spectacular otherwise, an exceptional project is needed.


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What are the chances of getting an academic position year after completion of PhD?
My situation is as follows:
When I will have completed my PhD, I will not be able to immediately apply for a research position at a university, as my girlfriend will want to move to a certain city and she wants me to come with her. My chances of getting a job at the university in that city are very slim (since getting a job in academia in general is very slim). I'll leave out the details here, but I cannot really opt out of this plan anymore.
Another important piece of information might be that I am in the Humanities. So it's not like I could work in my field so easily and then later get back into academia. The type of work I would be doing would be quite different.
So I will have to work out of academia (and out of my field) for a few years. I could try to set myself up as a part time independent researcher - would that help? I would really like to work in academia, but it's quite difficult given the circumstances.
I am completing my PhD at a very strong university, if it helps.

I am not sure what the question is. As general advice, if you really want an academic job at a specific university, it is never too early to start working on it. Learn what research they are doing in the appropriate department. Bias your work towards that. Make contacts.

Thanks. My problem is that when I will have completed my PhD, I will want to apply to jobs and get a research position very quickly. However, I cannot do that since my location will be restricted to the city my girlfriend will want to move to. So I would wait for my girlfriend to finish her thing, then apply anywhere in the world. However, I am worried that by that time I will not be competitive anymore, as I will have been out of academia for 3-4 years, maybe longer.

Given city X, look at the universities that are within, say, an hour's drive.  Take a look at the department corresponding to your field at each.  Then look at the person in those departments who is in your specific field — generally one per department.  Those are the people whose jobs you would be applying for. But they're in the job already, so unless they leave (not getting tenure, retiring, etc), there's no real chance of being hired.  Getting hired at a local CC or as an adjunct at the universities is more likely, the latter would probably grant you access to the library's resources.

Thanks. Will this help my in any way career-wise do you think, or do I set myself up for not getting a proper job in academia anymore? I've heard that it gets difficult if you haven't secured a 'proper' job right after your PhD.

Are you in a humanities area where it is common/expected to turn your thesis in to a book? Could you do that during your time? Could you delay official graduation for a time?

It is not expected of me, but I would ideally turn my thesis into a book. I could probably delay graduation time, but not for 4 years. Also, I would probably have to be on campus then, which I would not be.

My favorite book on making yourself a competitive applicant is The Professor is In. I read it cover to cover 3-4 times, had a relatively successful job marke

You could consider working as a lecturer (with a lower income) to at least get the teaching experience needed, and then you could do some research through the department and some as an independent researcher.


text:
Improve letter of recommendation after graduation?
I have been not the most vocal student and wasn't talking to the professors much after class. Much of this was because I was quite shy at the time. I have now graduated and would like to ask for an academic reference. My final grade was quite good, so my position is not that bad. I just wasn't so active in class.
Question : I am asking myself whether there are ways to improve a potential recommendation after having graduated. Like, for example, through email correspondence, or sending the professor a paper I wrote, etc.? Or should this ideally not influence the professor anymore?
What could I do? Or this generally a bad idea?
PS: Note that I am not asking to build a recommendation entirely after graduation, but to improve it somewhat.

It is fine to engage in email correspondence with a former instructor, but please do it for the sake of the conversation or collaboration itself, not just to improve the recommendation.  On the other hand, it is fine to inform your former instructors of a recent publication.  They'll be happy for you.

Thank you for your answer. I am genuinely interested in the professor and her work, but I would be looking to give them a more accurate impression of me also to improve the letter of recommendation.

First of all, although in all cases it would have been better for you to talk to your professors outside of class and cultivate further intellectual/professional relationships with them, how much better depends a lot on the situation.  For instance, in my academic field of mathematics, a student at a strong program who quietly does superior work in the most challenging courses available to her is going to get strong to very strong letters irrespective of the personal contact.   In other academic fields, the most promising undergraduates will likely have some engagement with the research interests of the faculty, perhaps even to the extent of coauthorship on papers, and missing out on that may be missing out on a lot.

I am asking myself whether there are ways to improve a potential recommendation after having graduated.

It becomes a lot harder to improve your professors' opinions of you after you leave, for the obvious reasons: you have no more necessary points of contact with them, and they are no longer getting paid to teach and interact with you.  Some faculty members are very generous with their time, but many faculty members
have packed their professional life with so many other activities that they literally don't have the time for more than casual interactions with former undergraduates.

Like, for example, through email correspondence, or sending the professor a paper I wrote, etc.?

You can try both of those things.  Sending a paper you wrote that has some connection to the research interests of the professor in question sounds more promising to me than simply trying to raise their esteem via the enthusiasm and erudition of your epistles.  (Sorry, I got a little carried away with the alliteration.) As above, a faculty member may not have time to do more than briefly glance at your paper...but even the brief glance of a professional can convince them that you're onto something and improve your letter.

Or should this ideally not influence the professor anymore?

No, you're fully entitled to take further steps to get a better letter.  That may be hard to do, but the attempt is fully appropriate.  Faculty will probably realize what you're doing (which is also okay...).

I disagree that "a student at a strong program who quietly does superior work in the most challenging courses available to her is going to get strong to very strong letters". I like to think I'm at a strong program, and a student who just quietly gets A after A in our graduate courses is going to be in a tough spot when it comes to getting effective letters. As a faculty member, what am I supposed to base my 'strong to very strong letter' on if I don't know the student? Perhaps you mean that such a student will have a strong transcript, but that doesn't mean the letters will be effective.

@Tom: It looks like we probably need to disagree on this just because we are each relying on our own experience, which is different...noncontradictorily.  But okay, I'll play a little bit: if you write a letter reminding everyone that Stanford is one of the top departments in the country and say that Ms. X performed better in courses Y and Z than most of the graduate students...haven't you already made a pretty good argument that she deserves a spot at a top program?...

...I was also thinking back to my own situation.  I wasn't an especially quiet student, so the undergraduate-leaning faculty knew who I was and knew I was doing well in very challenging courses.  But I didn't talk about research questions with any of them, and I didn't even get a letter from the one faculty member I did a reading course with.  (And I got into all the programs I applied to.)  I mean: how many Stanford undergrads are getting A after A in graduate courses, quietly or otherwise?  Maybe it's more than I think.


text:
Get in touch with potential PhD supervisor without a topic? How specific should I be?
I would like to work with a very specific person. That person has an interest in the overall topic I want to write my PhD in, but I have no idea what exactly that topic is going to be. But I am sure that I want to work with this person, and that this is the general area I want to tackle.
How do I get in touch? Should I better have some proposal ready? How specific would I need to be? Or do you think it's ok to just say it how it is?
I am worried to make a bad impression if I just contact him and say "I would like to do my PhD with you, but I have no idea what specific topic yet". I am in the political sciences and the person is in very high demand, which complicates things a bit further I guess. I am in the UK by the way.

That person has an interest in the overall topic I want to write my PhD in and but I have no idea what topic yet is a contradiction. You do know the overall topic. Maybe you don't know the specialization, but you are interested in working with this person for a reason. Explain that reason. Mention some parts of the topic that interest you, be honest about them.

Also, you questions are kind of contradictory, actually. In one from April you mention you want to do your PhD in 3-4 years, in another that your are currently doing it at a strong university and now you seem to be planning to start it soon and searching for a supervisor.

Hey, thanks for your reply. That's exactly what I mean: I do know the overall topic, I don't know the exact topic. I might need to edit this in order to make this more clear.

That my questions seem contradictory is true, but I don't think it matters. The building blocks of this platform are questions & I don't see the need to justify or explain myself here.

Which country and which subject area?

UK, political science

Are you and this person in the same town, or will you have to make the initial contact by phone or email?  Have you already been admitted to this person's university and department?  Have you checked if this person has posted instructions on the web for potential students to follow?  Have you read any of this person's papers, which might give you a conversational opener?

We are not in the same town, I will have to write an email. I have not been admitted to the university, - that's also part of the reason why I want to get in touch with him first, to make sure that, once I am admitted, I will be working with him and that this is safe. There are no instructions on his website, but I do have read papers (& books) which I could use as openers. I just feel a bit bad about it as I don't have a specific topic or question which I want to tackle, and would like to leave a good impression.

From your question, it sounds like you have an area you are interested in, but are not sure what your exact hypothesis or research question should be. For a pre- or early program PhD student, this is normal.
From my experience with PhD programs, students are often pushed to have their exact research question from the first day, but this is not usually not ideal. For most students (as it should be), your research question will change as you learn more about the topic. So, theoretically, how can you be so sure that a research question is the right one from the start without a serious review of the literature (which usually happens during your studies).
That being said, one way to approach this is to ask the professor to coffee or a brief meeting and tell him or her, "I am very interested in your area of research. I do not know enough about it to have a specific research question in mind, but I am very interested in working with you so I can learn more about it and develop my own area of study."
Your question reminds me of one graduate student who was placed with me and was interested in criminology and health, but not sure how the two should intersect. He was very interested in the topic of HIV/AIDS. I'm a gerontologist and he was placed with me because a more suitable advisor was on sabbatical. He learned more about gerontology and ultimately changed his research question to be about aging prisoners, which is a really hot topic. He is doing well. You will figure this out, too. Good luck.