Quote:
Originally Posted by moomber123
I am not suggesting that academia is like mafia, but the reality is that it is probably more mafia-like than most people who have this idealistic, respectful image of academia would expect. My best advice is to conduct yourself as scholarly as possible, so others in the field would have to treat you as such. Opportunistic behavior is generally not well respected.
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I agree somewhat, but I don't think that people getting pissed of at you is as much of a problem as getting _solid_ letters of recommendation. Let's say you go to UC Davis for a year and a half, pass prelims, and now you decide to apply to UCLA. The UCLA adcom will expect to see some good
LoRs from UC Davis faculty. You need a letter that not only says that such and such took my class and did well (just like all other PhD students UC Davis). You need a letter that implies that you are an extraordinary individual and the top student in your class. Otherwise, why would UCLA want you? They know Davis as a school is a tier below UCLA. They don't want just an average UCD student. And despite its ranking, you would be surprised just how many really smart and dedicated individuals attend the universities ranked just like UC Davis or even much below and how difficult the coursework can be at such schools. Pissing off the faculty, should be of secondary concern. I really doubt that any professors will jump through the hoops to wreck your academic career just because you wanted to transfer, like moomber described. I think that what he said is a bit of exaggeration. Nonetheless, I suspect some professors will be less than thrilled to find out that students in good standing want to leave their program.
However, such "transfers" do happen every once in a while, at least in econ. Those can be classified into two categories: 1) Individuals who really could have applied and be accepted at a better place without doing any additional graduate coursework, but for some reason they just didn't apply to better schools; 2) very smart, hardworking individuals who indeed stayed on top of their coursework AND managed to secure good
LoRs. But just because such transfers happen, I personally would suggest not to count on being necessarily able to move up this way.