Transferring schools

[kanishka]

Assuming an applicant is not too confident about his/her application, how good an idea is it to target mid-level schools with the aim of transferring to a better school?

 

Say the applicant has a masters in economics, and a couple of years work experience in a multinational corporation and one year teaching experience; a GPA in the range 3.0 - 3.5; and GRE scores - 800 quant, 700 verbal, 5.0 analytical.

[apropos]

So, if your profile is not so good, then what other choices do you have, other than not applying at all? However, if you apply to mid-ranked schools with the aim of transferring, keep these things in mind:

 

1. You probably have to be among the top 10% of your class to be able to transfer. Otherwise, why would the top schools become suddenly interested in you? And how do you know in advance that you will be a top student in your class? It's a PhD program, not a community college. There will be many very smart students there and each one of them understands that if he or she wants to succeed and get a good placement in the end, he or she needs to be absolutely on the top of everyone else. It's a very tough environment. How do you think you will succeed to become the top student? I have heard of several cases where the student had such hopes but they evaporated by the end of first year. Next, if you do become a top student there, why not just stay and finish the program? Being a top student in any program has huge advantages. You will end up getting lots of attention from the program faculty and that will surely be helpful, because you will be their #1 student as opposed Berkeley's #20, and Berkeley's #20 probably fails to attain a placement at a major research university too.

 

2. You will lose a year or more likely two years on this. Most likely it will take two years, because the top schools will not be impressed with just one semester of good grades. Plus, it might be really hard to have some of those transcripts delivered on time after the first Fall semester. If you're past mid-20s, this could be a huge consideration.

 

3. Asking your professors at the mid-level university for LoRs might put you into an awkward situation. They might become irritated that you used up school's resources and then decided to leave. It will become doubly awkward if you somehow fail to transfer out because then you will have to be their student until the completion of your Ph.D. degree.

 

My $0.02

[notacolour]

Every now and then, this question comes up. I give the same answer every time: applying somewhere with intent to transfer is a bad idea, basically for the reasons apropos mentioned. It takes away another year of your life (since your courses won't transfer), not to mention that you'll have to go through the entire application process once again. And while almost everyone thinks he can succeed at a very high level at these "mid-range" schools, chances are that you aren't quite as exceptional as you think, and you won't be the top student at your school. And faculty aren't going to be too enthusiastic about their tenth-best student transferring for no reason other than that he thinks he can do better, reputation-wise.

 

This is even a worse idea for someone with a master's in economics. You are unlikely to demonstrate anything you didn't demonstrate in your MA program.

 

A much, much better strategy would be to attend the school that's the best fit for you, and stop worrying about reputation quite so much. As mentioned above, if you really can excel at whatever school is your best fit, and you can do excellent research and develop good relationships with faculty, you could easily fare better than if you had been a middle- or lower-range student at a "top" school.

[peterB]

moved to a new thread.

[savingtheplanet]

Out of curiosity:

 

How would one communicate to a top-ranked school where one has placed in the PhD courses of the "mid-ranked school"? Presumably, unless you have an A+ on your transcripts, you would need to rely on LoR's.

 

And I certainly cant imagine that any faculty member would be happy to write you letters to transfer out.

 

A personal aside:

 

For this reason, I am contemplating sticking around my (unrelated) generously funded master's program and taking econ PhD courses without actually enrolling at the econ dept. If I dont get through to a better place, I shouldn't have much trouble enrolling at econ --- especially if i've taken their courses and done well.

[asquare]

aprops and others have it right. You should enroll in the PhD program from which you intend to graduate; planning to transfer is not a good idea. I agree with the three points aprops makes, though I have slightly different reasoning in some places:

 

1) As others have said, there is no guarantee that you will be at the top of the class at a lower ranked program. All econ PhD programs are difficult. Sorry to be blunt, but why think that you grades will be better in PhD classes than they were in (easier) masters classes? Everyone who enrolls in a PhD is motivated and departments, even those outside of the top 10 or 20, are full of smart, creative, hard working students. You can plan to work hard and being self confident is good, but you can't plan to be the top student in your program.

 

2) In the very best case, where you are actually accepted as a transfer student, I think you're set back one year. You will need to spend two years at the school where you start (because you won't have any grades or prelim results to give during the fall of your first year). Then, even if you pass the prelims in micro and macro at your new program (not guaranteed -- each school has a slightly different way of doing things, and also prelims at the higher ranked school may have higher grading standards than at the school you transfer out of), you will have to repeat the field courses.

 

You will also be "behind" in establishing relationships with professors and other PhD students. These relationships are critical to your success in graduate school; do not take them for granted.

 

3) (nothing to add to aprops).

 

There are some situations where transfering does make sense: if you discover that you want to pursue a field that your school does not offer, if all of the faculty who you planned to work with leave the department for some reason, or if there is some sort of compelling, unplanned family situation (though that last will be a harder situation, IMO).

 

Also, don't despair completely: the absolute most important thing is to write an outstanding job market paper. That is what will get you a good job. A great paper coming out of a mid-ranked university will get you a better job than a weak paper from a top-5 school (though yes, I do think that conditional on quality of paper, students from top schools get better jobs, and that there are reasons that make it easier to write a great paper at a higher ranked school).

[asquare]

For this reason, I am contemplating sticking around my (unrelated) generously funded master's program and taking econ PhD courses without actually enrolling at the econ dept. If I dont get through to a better place, I shouldn't have much trouble enrolling at econ --- especially if i've taken their courses and done well.

savingtheplanet, just a little heads up here. If you are at U-Mich (which I'm guessing from your "location") that plan may not work. Even masters of economics students are not allowed to enroll in the PhD core courses.

 

PhD students from other departments who are required to take the classes (business PhDs, mostly) are allowed. Masters students can take the econ masters courses, but those are not the same as the PhD courses. Masters students are sometimes, with the permission of the professor, allowed to enroll in field classes, but those classes are considered less rigerous and don't carry the same weight with admissions committees (with the exception of the micro, macro, and econometrics fields -- which, again, you can't enroll in unless you've had the prereqs.)

 

The econ department here is very explicit that the masters in economics program is NOT a "back door" into the PhD program, and I'd be very surprised if they'd allow another masters program at the school to play that role.

 

Of course, if you are at a different school, then maybe none of this applies! But if you are here, you should research this carefully before you bank too heavily on the plan you mentioned.

[kanishka]

thanks for the feedback. its just an idea one of my friends has, and i really didnt think it was a smart idea.

[ghampani]

kanishka,

 

I am surprised that you are getting these negative suggestions. As a student at UC Berkeley, I can tell you this: it is normal for A LOT OF foreign students to transfer from midranking schools to top schools after one or two years.

 

I was looking at a graduate of Yale who ended up at MIT this year, and she too transferred from Tuft to Yale. In fact, I know a lot of my international friends who changed their schools and came to Berkeley. Most of them have same story: they applied to MIT, Yale, Harvard, Berkeley, Miami, Rice, Indiana, Iowa State etc, and all they got was Iowa State. So they went to Iowa State, excelled there, got all As, and applied to other schools.

 

Do they get recommendations? Humm. It is not an easy question. Surprisingly, it is not hard. I asked a friend of mine this same question. He had taken courses in math department (Real Analysis) and math professor didn't object and wrote a shining recommendation. In fact, he asked an econ professor (metrics) who wrote a reco, but he said just this "I will be sorry to see you go. and won't be able to write much, except that you got A+ in the class." Most of the professors are nice people. They understand that if a student doesn't want to stay around, is not enjoying, it is a bad idea to stop him.

 

The end result was awesome for my friend: he got into Yale, Upenn and Berkeley. So, don't worry and work hard. Just remember that it is not easy to excel in even midranking schools. PhD programs are tough everywhere.

[snappythecrab]

ghampani,

 

kanishka is speaking of transfering while in graduate school, not as an undergraduate. there is a big difference.

[kanishka]

hmmm

 

to put this in a bit of context, said friend is also a bit unsure of doing a phd given the not-so-good grades.

 

I suppose from the responses it appears that the best way to look at applying with an intention to transfer is to defer the decision to transfer until the completion of the first year. If you've done really well, that will provide you with a bit of bargaining power, as the profs in the school will have a favourable impression of you.

 

I am only surprised at the reaction that "no-one will write a reco" etc We study economics; base our understanding on the existence of indifference curves and preference relations; make our application decisions on the basis of econphd.net rankings; yet why is it taken as given that one of your (hopefully) high performing students should not exhibit the same preferences with regard to earning a phd? Especially since the school you get your degree from is going to be a label you will have to wear, at least for the first 5-10 years of your career. In the long run, the 1 or 2 years you've given to "mid ranking" school, wouldnt matter too much. But saying you did your phd from Mid Ranking University and saying you did it from (insert top-10 school name) will.

[notacolour]

Your last paragraph doesn't make too much sense. Sure, faculty members expect students to want a degree from the highest-ranked school possible. But very few people are able to express actual reasons for transferring (and have the excellent credentials to back them up) without coming across as ungrateful, egotistical jerks. Profs tend not to respond too well to that, even if they would like to help otherwise.

 

 

The bottom line, once again, is that you should attend the best school you can get into. If it becomes clear once you're in that you're The Man, and you'd be better served at a top-ranked school, then you can worry about transferring, and if it's that obvious, you can probably pull it off. But the likelihood of that actually happening is practically 0, so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it.

[Cassin]

Your last paragraph doesn't make too much sense. Sure, faculty members expect students to want a degree from the highest-ranked school possible. But very few people are able to express actual reasons for transferring (and have the excellent credentials to back them up) without coming across as ungrateful, egotistical jerks. Profs tend not to respond too well to that, even if they would like to help otherwise.

 

That's a good explanation for one part of the professors' unwillingness. Consider the other part: most PhD programs, unlike MBA's, pay for your tuition and stipend. Ask yourself, why? My answer: they want good alumni precisely because their school's name will be on record. How do mid-ranked schools rise in rankings? They need their top students do well on the job market and publish great papers. Can they still rise in rankings if their top students leave the ship? What if you were the Graduate Director of Iowa State, what is your best response?

 

I don't know how big alumni donations are - I suppose it's a very minor reason (undergraduate institutions do, however, like to promote frequent donation drives). Professors invest their time and department's money into a good student. What do they get in return if you transfer? How's that for an indifference curve.

 

(But, yes, asking pure math professors might be wise as their department hasn't "sunk" much into your education, so they'll be less reluctant). I've read that a transfer student requires at least one letter from the dissertation advisor or thesis committee - otherwise the economics record at that school looks suspicious.

[kanishka]

phew...things get a little heated!

 

i suppose i have a different way of viewing the world. if i was a director of grad study for e.g. and there was an ungrateful egoistical jerk who wanted to transfer to a higher ranked school, i guess i'd let him. of course no one wants to be an ungrateful egoistical jerk...

 

at the end of the day, i gather its a bad idea to apply with intention to transfer. although i do not agree with some of the reasoning, i can understand it. thanks everyone!

[kanishka]

addendum -

 

of course, said ungrateful egoistical jerk must be a great student. and have good reasons to transfer.

 

this will most likely not be the case.

[kanishka]

i have also assumed that ungrateful egoistical jerks must be male. oh dear.

[apropos]

The concensus seems like getting new LoRs will be tricky. However, nothing will stop your friend from applying to higher ranked schools without submitting any new LoRs. Yes, this will make the application look weaker, but it will still look better with good grades from graduate courses on his transcript. Someone on this boad made it into Rutgers with aid and possibly some other schools after completing some of first year courses in a much lower ranked program that doesn't in show up in US News poll results. Still, I don't think it will be easy to shoot above a top 25 PhD program or so this way.

[Cassin]

addendum -

 

of course, said ungrateful egoistical jerk must be a great student. and have good reasons to transfer.

 

this will most likely not be the case.

 

Great reasons would be fine (some examples above included interest in researching a field not even offered). I assumed "higher rankings/prestige" to be the main point in my reasoning since it sounded like the applicant planned the transfer even before matriculation. That would be inconsistent with discovering a new passion after matriculation, for instance.

[ekonomiks]

This guy looks like he transferred from Michigan to Harvard: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~enikolop/CV.pdf

 

He's RA for Michael Kremer, so he's probably interested in development, which is offered as a field at Michigan.

[apropos]

 

I was looking at a graduate of Yale who ended up at MIT this year, and she too transferred from Tuft to Yale.

 

 

Tufts does not have a doctoral program in economics.

[stupidolive]

I have a question - and pls do not hate me to ask this:

Right now i have GWU, UMD and OSU. I only have fellowship in OSU and waitlisted assistantship in UMD and GWU. I am interested in development and i think UMD is the best so far. Assume that I don't get money this year, I have asked them and they said that if i decide to defer, i am guaranteed to get in next year and be considered for funding as first time applicant. I also have a choice of going to work for an economic consulting firm (NERA if anyone knows). What should I do? attend OSU for a year then try to transfer if I get a good grade. Or work for one year, also defer UMD and apply again? I don't think working for an econ consulting firm would help me much but i am thinking that I would put at least more time to do the applications rather than rushing to whatever schools i was told to apply this year.

Thanks in advance