Timeline for Graduate program applications that require questionnaires and other non-letter material
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
32 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 30, 2017 at 17:12 | review | Close votes | |||
| Dec 30, 2017 at 23:07 | |||||
| Oct 11, 2017 at 5:12 | review | Close votes | |||
| Oct 11, 2017 at 8:26 | |||||
| Jun 30, 2015 at 23:56 | comment | added | Kimball | Well, it's not a big burden. However, there were many times that I wanted to comment on or vote on something on another SE site, but didn't because I didn't want to bother setting up an account. And it's true that quite some mathematicians do use Academia.SE, but I guess it's an insignificant number compared to MO. | |
| Jun 30, 2015 at 19:31 | comment | added | KConrad | @Kimball, if someone already has a stackexchange account I don't think it's a big burden to pick up another one, particularly that one. I can imagine there might be some reluctance to set up an account for the "worldbuilding" stackexchange site, but I've seen mathematicians answering questions on the academia site. | |
| Jun 30, 2015 at 5:23 | comment | added | Kimball | @GerhardPaseman One issue with moving it to Academia.SE is that people here would need to make an account there to post answers/comments. | |
| Dec 19, 2014 at 5:38 | comment | added | fedja | @KConrad Same at the place I am. I insisted on using MathJobs when I was the chair of the hiring committee but we still had to tell the candidates to fill "an academic data form" (or something like that) through the university website for a) criminal background check b) diversity/affirmative action office, and c) something else I no longer remember. Fortunately, that particular form was not too strange or illogical and HR agreed to restrict the additional application paperwork to that form alone. | |
| Dec 18, 2014 at 20:04 | comment | added | KConrad | MathJobs but is for all other disciplines. My school's own employment system was so clunky by comparison to AcademicJobsOnline that in fact the internal application system was eventually abandoned and now all hiring is done through MathJobs for math and AcademicJobsOnline for faculty positions outside of math. | |
| Dec 18, 2014 at 20:01 | comment | added | KConrad | @Lucia: there have always been some schools that do not allow applications to be uploaded on Mathjobs, even if they advertise there. My department faced that threat a few years ago (i.e., being compelled to switch to the school's own employment application system) but we avoided that fate by (i) finding out from other departments what made the school's own employment site hard to use, (ii) showing an administrator what Mathjobs looks like from both the applicant's and employer's side, and (iii) telling administrators about the website AcademicJobsOnline, which is just like [to be contd.] | |
| Dec 18, 2014 at 18:28 | comment | added | Lucia | By the way, even the streamlined process we now have for MathJobs might be under threat -- this year, three universities made me upload letters for job candidates at their website rather than getting it themselves from Math Jobs. (Rochester, Vermont and North Carolina). I hope this infection doesn't spread, or that people will take steps in advance to resist it before too late. | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 23:20 | comment | added | fedja | @KConrad The point is that not only does the letter go to the agency that has little to do with the actual admission/hiring, but it also goes to the clerk whose job is not to think, but to scan, copy, and type in without thinking. So, he needs the address to be always in the same place and to be the address to which to send the correspondence, not the one it came from (in 95% of cases they coincide but in 5% they don't and he has no time or skills to distinguish). I do not see the point of the whole system either, but, if we take it for granted, I see the point of each particular within it. | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 19:24 | review | Close votes | |||
| Dec 17, 2014 at 22:14 | |||||
| Dec 17, 2014 at 19:21 | comment | added | Gerhard Paseman | @KConrad the academia site is built for questions and answers with issues just like this. The only reason to specialize it to math and post it here is that much of the audience you want is here (and I pretend that you want to shirk or otherwise avoid other academic disciplines). That's why I recommend a link, not deletion. The topic is otherwise not mathematical and I would not like to see many of these kinds of questions on this forum. Of course, it is not for me to decide, but the community to accept/reject. Gerhard "Don't Make It A Habit" Paseman, 2014.12.17 | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 18:38 | history | edited | KConrad | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Dec 17, 2014 at 18:33 | comment | added | KConrad | @paulgarrett: The UMass Amherst form asks for a percentage ranking out of all the students taught. Someone who has taught a number of large lectures could have several thousand students over the years, making 1% of that total not a strong endorsement. I found that when I tried to enter .5 in the percentage box it was rejected because "only numerical figures" are allowed! | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 18:23 | comment | added | paul garrett | And I was amused to be told by some of these on-line sites that the street address I gave them (the actual math dept address) "did not parse", or something. But, yes, as @JoeSilverman suggests, there're many issues about "leadership" and also questions about class rank (which no faculty would have reasonable means to answer)... Questions made up by people presumably uninvolved with actual admissions, and whose notion of it comes from movies or novels. :) | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 18:05 | comment | added | KConrad | @fedja: I don't see the point, for instance, of asking for mailing addresses of letter writers. How is any part of a university administration going to make worthwhile use of such information? It's tempting to list a mailing address as Cloud Cuckoo Land or Prostokvashino. | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 18:01 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Todd Trimble | ||
| Dec 17, 2014 at 17:54 | comment | added | fedja | There is one thing to keep in mind here. Different forms go to different agencies (yes, I support the idea that all higher administration, HR, etc. should be dismissed and all decisions should be made on the spot by a few people who really do the work and care about it, but it won't happen tomorrow). So, when you fill out 3 forms with the same content, you make it for 3 independent and, most of the time, unconnected readers for some of which it may be even illegal to share the info with the other two :-) | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 17:52 | comment | added | KConrad | @JoeSilverman: I mean both. Schools that screen quickly probably use GRE subject test scores rather than responses to "rank at a% out of b students in c years." I suggest at the end of my question to have a separate MO list of school not asking for such stuff. | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 17:25 | history | edited | Ricardo Andrade |
replaced new tag which encourages off-topic questions
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| Dec 17, 2014 at 17:08 | comment | added | Joe Silverman | @KConrad Are you referring to questions such as "what is the candidates potential to be a leader" and vague stuff like that, or do you also mean questions such as "rank in class" and check boxes with "top 1%, top 5%, ..."? Both types are annoying, and generally useless except maybe for initial screening at schools that get many hundreds of applications. OTOH, my experience is that almost all math grad programs pose such questions to letter writers, so you may get a more useful (and shorter) list if you ask for those schools that don't! | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 17:08 | answer | added | Bjørn Kjos-Hanssen | timeline score: 5 | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 16:48 | history | edited | KConrad | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Dec 17, 2014 at 16:00 | answer | added | KConrad | timeline score: 6 | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 15:51 | comment | added | KConrad | @user74230: I agree. I know some people who fill in those lines with "See attached form." No graduate program is going to send any letter writer a letter in the mail, so the collection of such information seems utterly pointless. Programs should stop asking for that kind of stuff as well. | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 8:25 | comment | added | user74230 | How about the absurdity of these websites asking one to fill in contact information when tautologically one wouldn't be filling out stuff on the darn website in the first place if they didn't have an accurate email address! Who designs these forms?!? | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 5:23 | history | edited | KConrad | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Dec 17, 2014 at 5:19 | answer | added | KConrad | timeline score: 7 | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 5:14 | history | edited | KConrad | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Dec 17, 2014 at 5:08 | comment | added | KConrad | Why is academia.stackexchange a better location? Having it on MO is much more likely to bring it to a wider reading by the intended target audience. I'd also like this to be a CW question, although I don't know how to make it one. | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 5:03 | comment | added | Gerhard Paseman | I applaud the intent behind the post; I decry its current location. Please submit to academia.stackexchange and add a link here to it. Of course, if the community decides otherwise... . Gerhard "For Keeping MathOverflow Primarily Mathematical" Paseman, 2014.12.16 | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 4:50 | history | asked | KConrad | CC BY-SA 3.0 |