[套词] 美国教授对陶瓷的看法（很详细） [复制链接]

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发表于 2004-2-13 11:27:17 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

发信人: prod (刺), 信区: AdvancedEdu
标题: 一篇关于套磁一针见血的文章(不知old不)
发信站: BBS 水木清华站 (Fri Feb 13 00:27:16 2004), 转信

From UCI的一个教授的网页

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~franz/Site/prospectivestudents.html

Dear Prospective Graduate Student,

There are many myths about our admissions process that have unfortunate cons
equences for everyone involved. During the Fall months, I get about 10 email
s every day from prospective students who claim that “their research intere
sts match mine”.

Unfortunately, my colleagues often get the identical emails from the exact s
ame students — and that includes faculty colleagues who are in completely d
ifferent areas.

This “shotgun approach” to sending emails to multiple professors is extrem
ely unproductive. For me, it means that I have to wade through large numbers
of “application junk” mails to get to the few genuinely interesting email
s from qualified students.
s from qualified students.

Equally importantly, most of the senders of such “application junk" mails d
on't understand that it also backfires on them. Admissions at UCI (similar t
o other major research universities) is made by a committee. Individual facu
lty members cannot admit students on their own. The committee collects infor
mation from the faculty about what applicants they have “been in contact”
with. Typically, if prospective students have been emailing different profes
sors in completely different areas, that will work against them and may sign
ificantly reduce their chances of admission.

If you are interested in applying to the Ph.D. program at UC Irvine (or any
other university for that matter), do yourself a favor and take the followin
g pieces of advice from me:

Apply: The only way of becoming a graduate student is by applying. An applic
ation fee is due. Every year, there are students who think they can avoid pa
ying the application fee by “sounding out” faculty who might admit them “
just like that”. This is discourteous and stupid. In fact, your application
is incomplete and won't even be available to faculty members for viewing un
til you have paid the fee. You really should not even start emailing profess
ors until your application is complete and the fee has been paid.

Be Passionate: Getting a Ph.D. shouldn't only be about immigrating into the
United States — yet for many of our applicants, that appears to be the prim
e motivation. Ask yourself: does the area that I am applying for really inte
rest me sufficiently that I want to be spending 5-6 years working in it, 60-
80 hours a week? Successfully completing your Ph.D. requires an enormous amo
unt of self-motivation. The dirty little secret of graduate education is tha
t the drop out rate hovers around 50% — chances are very high that you won'
t make it unless you seriously love your research subject. The prospect of a
better life after graduating is not normally sufficient to pull people thro
ugh the hardship that graduate school really is. You may also want to read D
oug Comer's very relevant web page “Notes on the Ph.D. Degree”.

Do Your Homework: Before you email any professor at any particular universit
y, you should familiarize yourself with that professor's research. At the ve
ry least, read the whole web site. Reading a few of the papers doesn't hurt
either. And then, if you indeed find one or two professors in the whole Unit
ed States who really match your interests, only then is it legitimate to wri
te to those one or two professors. And yes, if you are that “rare match” t
hat every professor is looking for, then indeed the professor will run throu
gh the necessary exception paperwork that will virtually guarantee your admi
ssion. But this is rare, and don't expect any professor doing this for you u
nless you really are the rare student who completely fits into the existing
nless you really are the rare student who completely fits into the existing
research group. When in doubt, don't send the email to the professor (see ab
ove).

Be Truthful About Your Credentials: Among my faculty colleagues at Irvine th
ere are professors who read and write Chinese, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Spanis
h, German, French, Italian, Russian, Rumanian, Czek, Arabic,... to name just
a few languages. Most applicants should safely assume that we will be able
to read their foreign documents in the original language, and that we know t
he relative rankings of most foreign universities in their respective countr
ies. Please don't insult us by claiming that you come from “the best univer
sity” in your country when that is clearly not the case, or by claiming tha
t “this document states that I was an Assistant Professor in my country” w
hen we have people who can read the original and know better. Any such misre
presentation will not work in your favor.

It's Not A Game: Believe it or not, we have had letters of reference from no
n-existing professors in the past, and outright forgeries as well. You shoul
d assume that we verify the references of all admitted students, and that we
report any discrepancies to the police — both here and in your home countr
y. This is not a game and if you commit a crime in the process of applying,
expect to be punished.

Having said all that, I do welcome legitimate questions from prospective gra
duate students. To answer the most common questions in advance:

Funding: As in most research universities, virtually all of our Ph.D. studen
ts are fully funded, meaning they get a monthly salary or stipend and their
tuition and fees are fully paid. Most of our M.S. students are not funded. I
f you do bring your own funding (for example, by having a national stipend f
rom your home country), your chances of admission will be higher — but you
cannot buy your way in: we won't admit students who don't meet the admission
s criteria even if they promise to build us a new building. Do not send emai
l to professors asking “if they have funding available” — funding decisio
ns for new applicants are made by the same committee that also does admissio
ns. If you are admitted without funding (e.g., as an M.S. student), this mea
ns that a deliberate decision not to fund you has been made — so sending em
ails to individual professors at this point is pretty useless but will make
you notorious before you even get here.

Advisor: Typically, incoming students will get an offer for a teaching assis
tantship for their first year and they will come in without an advisor. Duri
ng the first year, they will then try to find a faculty advisor with matchin
g interests and in subsequent years they will be funded on research assistan
tships. If you are a good student, then the faculty will be competing for yo
tships. If you are a good student, then the faculty will be competing for yo
u as their student. If you are a bad student, then you will have trouble fin
ding an advisor and you might even be asked to leave if you don't find one.
The case where an incoming student already has an advisor is the exception,
but it also happens — this is usually only the case if a “close match” ha
s been determined in advance (see above).

Admissions: Our admissions are extremely competitive. Every year, we have to
turn away hundreds of highly qualified applicants. The best way of ensuring
that your application will receive full consideration is to have your file
complete by the deadline.

If, after reading all of this, you still want to get in contact, please send
me an email and mention the code word “Hogwarts” in your subject line. If
you omit this keyword, I will assume that you haven't read this page and th
at your email is “application spam” — and I will report you to our admiss
ions committee as an “application spammer”.

Good luck with your application,

Michael Franz

The case where an incoming student already has an advisor is the exception,
Admissions: Our admissions are extremely competitive. Every year, we have to
turn away hundreds of highly qualified applicants. The best way of ensuring
that your application will receive full consideration is to have your file
complete by the deadline.

If, after reading all of this, you still want to get in contact, please send
me an email and mention the code word “Hogwarts” in your subject line. If
you omit this keyword, I will assume that you haven't read this page and th
at your email is “application spam” — and I will report you to our admiss
ions committee as an “application spammer”.

Good luck with your application,

Michael Franz

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