My PhD Application Story
In the last blog post I mentioned wanting to “write more freely.” I think a more direct way to express my goal is to say that I want to write better, faster. By “better” I mean more structured, tight, and to-the-point, and by “faster” I mean, well, faster. That post took me over two hours to write and it doesn’t even have much structure. This time, I want to try writing a structured story in under one hour. This post will be about my PhD application experience—a saga with a clear beginning, middle, and end, which will hopefully make structuring easier for me. I also hope that the story will be both useful and affirming for those who stumble upon this page, as I imagine many of you are aspiring or current graduate students. Here we go!
The decision to apply to PhD programs happened when I was a master’s student. I recall being told during the beginning of the master’s program that we would have two different deliverable options for our capstone project (the final project you submit before earning your graduate degree): option one was a professional report, and option two was a thesis. The program coordinators mentioned that most students opt for the professional report, hoping to head into industry jobs right after graduation and stay there indefinitely. The thesis option was less common, reserved for those students who envisioned themselves furthering their planning education at any time after the master’s degree, even after a few years of industry experience.
I grew up in a college town, surrounded by kids whose parents moseyed to campus on cruiser bikes with coffee in hand, head in the clouds. Yes, sometimes the industry is grueling. For example, my mom, a university librarian, often returned home from work late at night after hours of toiling over the reference book she was writing in hopes of earning tenure (which she eventually did). But what struck me most was how many academics seemed to love their work. My friends’ parents talked excitedly about their research over dinner, stayed up late refining lectures, and met up at coffee shops around town to work on papers together.
Even in the midst of stress and long hours, there were moments of pure, joyful immersion in their work. The same people who scrambled to meet deadlines and agonized over the tenure process were also the ones who pedaled to campus lost in thought, energized by the pursuit of ideas and collaboration. The cycles of chaos and grind were so normalized around me that they never felt like deterrents. So when I heard about the thesis option for my master’s degree, I knew I wanted to set myself up for the best chance at being part of that world. Even if I failed at breaking into academia, having a PhD would unlock more senior planning positions with greater creative freedom—offering, at the very least, a better chance at experiencing that same sense of joyful immersion and a better chance at making a real impact.
You might have some criticisms of me right now, and I understand. There are plenty of people who despise academia, and for very valid reasons. I also have my condemnations of the industry, but that’s a topic for another post (more likely a series of posts). The point here is that, as a master’s student, I had the option to do a little extra work for an opportunity to further my planning education and be part of a highly impactful and rewarding industry later on. The alternative would all but confine me to a life of planning practitioner jobs with little impact or creative freedom. I chose to do the extra work.
Two years later I finished my master’s thesis. I finally had time to look ahead again. It was 2021, still the height of Covid-19 lockdowns, so I wasn’t keen on starting a PhD program virtually. I also recalled that some of the best professors I’d had in my undergrad and master’s programs were those with professional experience as planners. I decided that the best decision would be to work for two years and then begin a PhD program, so I got a job as a transportation planner at an MPO. Everyone told me I wouldn’t want to go back to school after working (and earning almost three times what I got from my master’s stipend), but I was confident enough in my long-term goals that this didn’t deter me. And I turned out to be right—every part of my work experience only affirmed my plan to go back to school.
After two years into working full-time, I couldn’t wait to start filling out PhD applications. The challenges I encountered at work gave me endless ideas for research, yet I was confined to following specific protocols that inhibited almost any creativity. I wasn’t happy, and I channeled my discontent towards a whopping fifteen PhD program applications. I was confident that my articulate criticisms of the planning status quo would win over professors across the country and I’d soon have my ticket out of planning practice.
January came and I received a few rejections from top programs. I wasn’t too surprised. In February I received a few more but still had hope. After another handful of rejections in March, I lost all hope. By the summer, all of my applications had been rejected. I slowly came to terms with the idea of working for one more year before trying again, but I knew something had to change in the meantime. I had two years of full-time public sector planning experience and figured a third wouldn’t enhance my application very much. What I needed was more research experience, so I applied for research fellowships (future blog post: how to know if you need more research experience, and where to find it post-graduation).
Within a couple months I had uprooted my entire life: I moved to a new city, began a one-year, part-time research fellowship, and used the remainder of my time to strengthen my application in other ways. Here are some things I did differently the second time around:
I began reaching out to potential advisors in the summer (when they’re less busy) instead of in the early fall.
I scheduled one-on-one meetings with potential advisors.
I gave my recommendation letter writers a more detailed breakdown of my skills, accomplishments, and goals.
I made research goals the primary focus of my personal statement.
I wrote customized personal statements for each school based on the potential advisor’s research area (and cited them where possible).
When reaching out to potential advisors, I mentioned recent work that aligned with my research interests.
That fall, feeling much more guarded than before, I only sent applications to programs that met the following criteria: 1) a potential advisor in the program showed genuine interest in having me as a student, 2) a potential advisor in the program confirmed they’d have funding for me, and 3) the program was fully-funded. My final list was composed of five programs, and I was accepted to three with full funding.
My first application cycle consisted of fifteen applications and fifteen rejections. In the second cycle, I was accepted to three of the five programs I applied to. What changed the second time around was 1) the level of care I put into personal statements and relationship-building with potential advisors, 2) the amount of research experience I had, and 3) the fact that I only applied to programs that cared enough to assure me they had the capacity to support me financially. You could chalk it up to luck, but I like to think my success the second time around was the result of the tweaks I made. When prospective PhD students ask me for advice, these are the things I emphasize.
Everyone has a different PhD application journey. Some people might be less sure than I was about the initial decision to aim for a PhD. Those people might have better outcomes from the application process, or they might not. Despite how confident I was in my plans to pursue a PhD, it took me two years to get accepted into a program (not to mention all the time I spent on my master’s thesis). Contrary to the common belief that PhD applications boil down to luck, I think certain steps can greatly improve the chances.
If the idea of joyful immersion in intellectual pursuits excites you, I encourage you to consider a PhD! And if you decide to go all in, I recommend “front-loading” your application process so that relationships and financial arrangements are developed—or at least discussed—early on.
