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This stage usually comes
after you've been accepted to the schools and
they're trying to convince you that you should go
there. You can visit by yourself before hand, but
most places will not be as willing to spend the
amount of time with you that you'd like, and they
almost certainly will not be willing to pay for
you to come and visit them. That being said,
here's what you should expect to happen at this
point. As I said
earlier, you'll start getting the acceptance
notices in early February to mid March. All
acceptance notification that I received included
an invitation to come and visit the school that
they would reimburse me for. Please note that
most schools said that they did not ask for
students who went to school in foreign countries
or masters students to visit. Some schools
offered to pay no matter what it cost, while
others put caps on the amount that they were
willing to pay. Be very careful about this. One
school said that it would pay for $300 and would
put us up with graduate students. When I
contacted the school shortly before I was to
visit, it gave me a list of hotels and told me to
fend for myself. So make sure that you have all
of the details like that settled before you buy
your tickets. Some schools may pay for you to
visit only if you can come on the date that they
are having the rest of their incoming students
come and visit; be sure to check on this as well.
Also note that you
have to buy the tickets and then they reimburse
you. If you are visiting a large number of
schools, this can be pretty expensive; it can
take schools up to two months to get
reimbursements to you. So you might want to
consider getting an extra credit card.
Chances are good that
you'll be pretty psyched about your first
acceptance as well you should be. You should note
that the better schools tend to come in later in
this process. That is to say a school ranked in
the 20's will probably accept you considerably
before a school ranked in the top 10. If you can
take the time to visit all of the schools you are
admitted to, and you're sincerely interested in
them, I definitely would. It's bad form to take
their money just to check out the department for
future reference if you aren't really interested
in them. However visiting the schools can get you
a good idea of what's going on in the field and
can also help you make contacts for later. So my
advice is to visit all of the schools you think
that you'd really like to do so. Also, check with
your professors at the beginning of the semester
to make sure that visiting the different schools
isn't going to cause difficulty academically. You
should try to take a very light load; this
decision is going to be a lot harder than you
expected (most likely) and you're going to have
to invest a lot of time and energy in this
process.
If you're unfamiliar with
how to make travel arrangements, look for a place
that specializes in student fares; Council Travel
is one that has offices nation wide. As an
example, I called up an airline and asked them
for their cheapest flight out to a specific
destination. I specifically asked for a student
discount if there was one, and they quoted me
$400. So I called up the student travel agency,
and they quoted me $326- on the same flights that
I had gotten from calling the airline. Another
option is, of course, surfing the net for prices.
One that seems to be fairly good is Travelocity
Preparing to visit a school
After you've decided to visit a school and
made all of the travel arrangements, you should
start looking more carefully into the information
you have about the school. What you should be
looking at in particular is the research that you
think you'd be interested in, and the people who
you think you'd like to work with. It's not
necessary to read all of the papers that the
person you're interested in has written, it is to
your advantage to see what sort of general
research their into. Surf the web for this
information. Picking out whose stuff to look for
is a bit more difficult. Often times someone from
the school will contact you as being interested
in your work. Unless you have a reason not to,
this would probably be a good person's work to
look at; you know that they're interested in
working with you based on what you said in your
application. Another good resource is the people
at your school. Ask the people at your school
(especially if they came from the school that you
are going to visit) if there's any people they'd
recommend talking to. Most places will probably
set up a schedule for you, but if they don't,
knowing who you want to talk to is very
important.
When you're packing for the places, wear
something either casual or a little above it. My
personal choice was usually a pair of khaki
pants. As with any trip, bring along a extra set
of essentials in case something goes really
wrong, and bring along a credit card for
unexpected expenses. You won't need to bring
along anything for your day of visiting the
school with the possible exception of a writing
implement.
Most schools will have one or two dates on
which they'd like you to come and visit. If you
can go on that date, it's a really good idea;
then you get to meet the other students who might
be entering with you. Since the people you are
with are going to make a big difference in how
well your graduate school education goes, that
can be very important. If you can't go that day,
visiting is still a valuable experience, but
you'll miss out on that. Professors also may not
have the time to talk with you if you visit then,
and you'll probably have to set up more of your
own meetings.
Actually visiting the school
When you visit the school, what you are trying
to see is how the department is, is there
research you want to do going on there, are there
professors you'd like to work with, and basically
do you want to go there. When you have concluded
the visit, make sure to write down what you
thought about the school and people ASAP; you'd
be surprised by how much the places can run
together in your brain.
If you go on the official visiting day, most
likely your day will run something like this:
greeting from someone (probably the department
chair) with some food, long boring talk in which
the people in the department try to tell you
about all of the research that's occurring in the
department, meetings with the individual
professors, watching demos, and talking to grad
students. You'll probably be served food anywhere
from one to three times during this. Here's what
you should expect out of each of these and what
you should try to get out of them.
Intro speech
The intro speech is, perhaps, the least
informative of these events. Other than learning
more about what you'll be doing for the rest of
the day, there's really not a whole lot you can
get out of it. You can see what the rest of the
people in the department do during it, which can
give you an idea of how the department is run, or
you can read over the materials they've just
given you. About the most helpful thing that you
can do is listen to what he or she says and see
if there's anything that he or she says that
makes you feel either uncomfortable or feel as
though you want to go to that school. If
something like this does occur, write it down;
there should be at least one piece of paper in
the package of stuff that they gave you that has
space to write on. As I said earlier, bring
something to write with.
Description of research
(Otherwise known as the long boring talk)
This is perhaps the worst event, in my opinion.
One of two things can happen.
- Each professor speaks for his/her self.
This method has several consequences. The
first is that if everyone needs to talk,
it can take a really long time , or
people's research gets left out. If this
is the case, try to pay attention to the
projects that people are talking about,
and also see if they sound like people
that you'd like to work with. Write down
the names of people who you'd like to
talk to. Even if you have a list of
people to talk to and they aren't on it,
try to talk to them sometime, even if
it's just during lunch.
- One person talks about the research for
everyone in their group. This method can
cause the meeting to run shorter, but
will also not let you hear people talk
about their own research. If that
happens, make sure that you pay careful
attention to whose work they're talking
about, otherwise you can have your
judgment clouded by who is talking even
if they have nothing to do with that
research.
In any case, what you want to take out
of this meeting is all of the research
that's going on that you find
interesting. Make sure that if you find a
particular project interesting you write
down who it is so that you can talk to
them, or you'll forget. Do not count on
the meeting being done by the time it's
supposed to be done.
Meeting with
Professors
This is one of the most important
events. This is where you get to find out
of the person is someone you'd actually
be interested in doing work with. As
mentioned earlier, this will go much
smoother if you already have some idea of
what their research is. When you are
talking to professors, you're looking for
two main things: 1. Would you like to
work on the research that this professor
is doing? 2. Could you work with this
person? The advisor relationship is the
most important one that you'll form in
graduate school, and you should think
about it very carefully. If you have
questions, ask them, but always keep in
mind that you can ask them afterwards via
mail or a message.
Demos
This is the least important of the
events. You'll get to see the cool stuff
that is going on in the department,
however you can probably get a better
idea by talking to the professors or grad
students. While it can be fun, I would
only goto the demos if you don't have
anything else to do.
Talking with graduate
students
This is also very important, for
several reasons. One reason that this is
important is that the graduate students
will most likely tell you what is
actually going on in the department; they
have much less to gain than the
professors for you to come there, so
they'll be much more likely to tell you
what's really going on in the department.
They can probably answer most of your
questions or point you at the proper
person to ask. Some questions you may
want to ask are (in no particular order):
- how they like the department
- can they live on their stipend
- If there is a specific professor
who you'd like to work with, find
some of his/her students and ask
them how they like working with
the faculty member.
- how many people who enter the
program finish with a PhD
- why did the people who don't
finish leave
- what happens if you decide (for
whatever reason) to leave the
program (one school told me that
they were attempting to implement
a program in which you could
leave with a masters, but you had
to pay back all of the tuition
they'd spent on you)
- are they happy there
- how many hours a week they spend
at work
- what the classes are like
- how many classes they have to
take.
- what hurdles (like preliminary
exams) do you have to take, and
what type are they (oral,
written...)
- anything else that's important to
you; for example, if you are
female ask the female students
how they are treated as females.
This is important; don't feel
silly for asking.
What to do if you can't visit
If you can't visit, for what ever reason, you
can still find out useful information about the
school if you want to go there. One method is to
ask someone you know what their impressions were.
This will probably tell you about what the people
were like, but will not give you a very good view
into what the professors who you want to research
with are like. Send the professors email or give
them a call. Most professors will be happy to
tell you what they are up to. Make sure to have a
good idea about what the graduate community is
like in addition to what the professors are like.
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