<p>If the bio PhD ends up founding a start-up, those sorority connections and leadership skills will absolutely come in handy. </p>
<p>That you may be in research does not mean that you will spend he rest of your life in academic research. Not sure why mini thinks differently.</p>
<p>I don’t understand the objection to what mini has posted. All I am reading is that he thinks the sorority connection doesn’t make sense or may be a negative on a PhD application. I agree. Mini and I have both suggested the student’s professors are the ones that have the answer to that question. That doesn’t mean the sorority connection is worthless. Talking to a venture capitalist group about funds for a start up will involve trying to impress a very different culture than trying to impress research scientists looking for new students.</p>
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<p>It is good they sound dreadful because there are way too many students applying for PhD programs, and way too many PhDs being graduated for the jobs available.</p>
<p>I am going to brag: one of my kids is in a PhD program where he was the only one selected his year out of more than 200 applicants. Probably a majority of those applicants had publications or publication-worthy writing to show in the field of interest. Many of them had had very competitive grants to pursue their research interests. In advising him on his PhD applications, his professors concentrated on helping him demonstrate how close his research interests were to those of the professors with whom he wanted to study (this might be fine tuned from school to school) and also highlight areas of cross disciplinary expertise that aren’t the norm in his field at his level, or sometimes at any level. At some schools these skills would be desirable to professors in furthering their own research interests and make him a more desirable candidate in their eyes. One of his good friends in his program is a year behind him. She told him she first applied the same year he did and was told by the department that they thought she was very impressive, but that they only had one spot and they had already identified another student to accept. If he didn’t accept their offer, they wanted her. This was in fall before my son had even submitted his application. They knew the application was coming. She did an MA program for a year and re-applied successfully the following year.</p>
<p>He did not put extracurricular leadership positions on his PhD application and it would not have mattered if others applying to his program had or hadn’t listed such achievements.</p>
<p>post #2: It seems like parentofpeople’s daughter had a much different experience. It sounds like the EC was a positive in that application.</p>
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<p>Many senior faculty evaluating PhD apps, especially old-school ones would regard leaving academia to found a start-up to be a sign of “failure” or demonstrating “lack of dedication to the field”. </p>
<p>For them, the mark of/pinnacle of success is to gain tenure and promotion to becoming a top Prof in their field in academia. While this may not make much sense to those of us outside academia…this mentality is commonplace within academia.</p>
<p>Unless the academic department is pre-professional in orientation or is known for having pre-professional friendly faculty members, even being suspected of going into a PhD program with the intention of “selling out” to go outside academia would be considered sufficient grounds by some Profs to reject such potential applicants or if this is manifested after admission…finding some way of kicking them out. </p>
<p>Unless it’s very early in the program or they developed a strong animus against the student concerned, said student will usually be allowed to leave with a “consolation prize” Masters degree.</p>
<p>I saw all of my son’s grad school,applications and NONE had anywhere for EC activities of any kind.</p>
<p>Questbest…is your kiddo putting a resume together to include with her grad school applications? Some grad schools will not look at any materials in addition to the actual application.</p>
<p>Please explain…are you saying that your daughter’s grad school applications have a place for EC types of activities?</p>
<p>My older D is is now completing a six-year dual Ph.D. program at Princeton. There were scores of applicants for the one place in her specialty. Probably all but a few were qualified. All had very high grades. Almost all of them had great LORs. Almost all of them had very high GREs. Many if not most of them (unlike my D.) already had a masters degree. Lots of them went to great schools. Most of them likely wrote very well. There was no place on the application for ECs (though there is always a way to make folks aware of them if one chooses.)</p>
<p>My d’s experience was exactly the same as ALH’s son’s. My d. was chosen because of a very highly specific need of the professor she would be working with (and did) that the professor had in that particular year. (The specifics are not necessary here.) Had she applied the year before, chances are she wouldn’t have gotten the place. Same the year after. The professor only needed one person to perform this role (not one per year; one in the entire program). It had nothing to do with leadership skills, social club or fishing.</p>
<p>Anecdotes are not evidence, of course. If the OP’s d wants to know whether to put her social club on her application (even where there is no place to put it), she should talk about it with her faculty advisor.</p>
<p>I agree with others about the importance of tailoring the grad school application to the discipline, the department, and a handful of professors in the department.</p>
<p>My kid (who is heading into a PhD program in a hard science this fall) showed me her personal statements and the resume she was uploading with her application. Her resume did include an EC that had nothing to do with science - it was the sport she participated in for four years. It didn’t raise red flags for me or for the professors who reviewed her application. I think it could be seen as relevant because her team did very well nationally for all four years, so it points to a capacity and willingness to go “all in” on something. This is useful for life in the lab, since grad students usually work very long hours, don’t have weekends free, go in at odd times to keep track of reactions, etc.</p>
<p>Oh, blah blah blah with the “grad students and academics work so much harder than everyone else.” How navel gazing and insular are these people anyway?</p>
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For them, the mark of/pinnacle of success is to gain tenure and promotion to becoming a top Prof in their field in academia. While this may not make much sense to those of us outside academia…this mentality is commonplace within academia."</p>
<p>Gosh, and they wonder why they’re largely irrelevant outside their own little worlds?</p>
<p>Mine definitely does not work harder than everyone else. Or, to put it another way, there is really no distinction for her between work and play.</p>
<p>And she is wondrously irrelevant outside her own little world. The kind of stuff that makes life worth living.</p>
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Actually, I would think that it’s because a serious sport is quite a commitment, and anyone who can handle college varsity athletics, plus a heavy science load, is clearly capable of managing her time well and getting a lot accomplished in not a lot of time.</p>
<p>Grad school requires a lot more work than undergrad. Those who barely keep their heads above water in college, forgoing all ECs, aren’t good candidates for a radically increased workload.</p>
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And I would be willing to bet that the Presidents of their colleges beg to differ. Future academics aren’t donating the cash that gets a new science lab built.</p>
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<p>True. However, getting funding for things like science labs is considered more the job description of the college presidents and his admins than faculty members. College presidents are a.k.a. chief fundraisers and promoters of their colleges. </p>
<p>He/she making that argument would be viewed as the equivalent of a senior executive dumping one of his/her critical core responsibilities on colleagues and subordinates. I don’t know about you…but that behavior is a manifestation of irresponsibility in my book.</p>
<p>Cobrat, what on earth are you talking about? That is so far beyond anything discussed in this thread as to be absurd.</p>
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<p>In short, any college president who openly begs to differ regarding perceptions of academic faculty has betrayed he/she lacks a clue regarding the culture in key corners of academia. </p>
<p>That is, unless he/she is running a for-profit college or a non-profit college operating on a similar basis/heading there.</p>
<p>What?! </p>
<p>Still completely out of the realm of what’s going on ITT. We’re talking about whether or not to include a sorority, not anything about college presidents or blah, blah, blah.</p>
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<p>The actual irrelevancy was bringing the college president in on this discussion without seeming to understand that most college presidents stay out of the academic/admissions domains of their institutions because in most cases…it would be viewed as undue meddling, especially if the college president isn’t/wasn’t a successful academic Prof. in his/her own right. </p>
<p>Academic grad admissions are determined by senior faculty in each department, admissions in professional grad schools and undergrad are determined by their respective adcoms.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily true. I know of a number of departments where it’s done by a collection of faculty.</p>
<p>I’m actually amazed at the people here that say they’d consider involvement in a non-STEM activity as a negative. I wonder if you would also completely ignore students that had spent time in the military because they didn’t start grooming themselves for the PhD in preschool.</p>
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I don’t think people are saying it’s bad, and they have many positive benefits (leadership skills, socializing, etc.). I think most people are just saying that they typically aren’t much use in the graduate admissions process. None of the fields I’m familiar with consider non-field-related extracurriculars to be at all important, and most applications do not even include a space for them. For better or worse, I think most PhD programs would consider a sorority leadership position no more important than someone having six toes or the ability to juggle. </p>
<p>PhD programs are about producing researchers, and the most important aspects of an application - statement of purpose, writing sample, LORs, etc. - speak to that. Ensuring that their students have a well-rounded social life is not a prime concern for most professors (unfortunately). </p>
<p>At least in my field, students from countries like the UK and Germany are way overrepresented in American graduate programs, and it’s partly because they focus intensely on a single field and don’t have as big a focus on extracurriculars as Americans do. Heck, I was grilled by professors at Michigan and Hopkins because I had an unrelated second major! :rolleyes:</p>
<p>As others have said, applying to medical school, business school, and the like is obviously a different kettle of fish.</p>
<p>Let’s remember that the OP asked whether “listing” a sorority position on a graduate school application would be a positive or negative. NOT whether being in a sorority or having a leadership position would be a help or a hindrance, not whether she had leadership skills, not whether she’d be more capable of shmoozing, not whether graduate departments valued the ability to relax, listing.</p>
<p>And my opinion is that it is a very mild negative. Now if she wrote about it how it would make her more capable of carrying out her graduate school assignments, and could do that convincingly, that would be an entirely different kettle of fish. Same for athletics, or military service, or Mousketeers, or competitive male bellydancing. Show me its direct relevance to what I need in a graduate student, and I’m all eyes and ears. List it and I (briefly) question your judgment.</p>
<p>What if the phd or masters program was in education or communications?</p>