Are you thinking about applying to a PhD program? Are you already a doctoral student? PhD is a huge investment of time and money. So make sure you spend 15 minutes of your time reading this blog devoted to PhD program success and survival tips. I'm confident that these tips can save up to 10 years of your life, up to $1,000,000 of your money, and, most importantly, your physical and emotional health.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

How to get accepted into a PhD program

Pragmatically, there's only one reason as to why a professor would want to have you as his or her PhD student. And that is to get some publications out of you. Publications is the most valuable thing in the world for a professor, because his or career largely depends on the quantity and quantity of publications.

So if you want to get into a PhD program, you must demonstrate that you have a great potential for conducting and publishing research. Preferably, you should try to publish a paper or two before you apply to a PhD program. Even a trade press publication might help.

So everything that you write and say during the application processes should be geared towards making a strong case that you can co-author a lot of papers with professors in the department.

5 comments:

  1. Is there something else going on? Something that has nothing to do with an applicant having a high enough gpa, very good gre scores, and a well written letter of intent for the PhD?

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  2. This was useless.

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  3. incomplete and not entirely true

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  4. "This was useless." "incomplete and not entirely true". That's not a very nice thing to say. Are you academics?

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  5. The way it usually works: Student does all the work, professors do nothing. If it is your idea they will try to convince you it would be best to have them on board to get published easier. Still, all work is done by the student. The whole setup is a complete joke.

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