This fantasy started fleshing itself out as I was responding to comments on my Grad Admissions Make No Sense post, and I decided to put it in a post all its own.
This stems from my desire to eventually snub SuperFuckingRockStarHolyShit school - my top choice for grad study and also the first rejection I received, suggesting I did not make it past the 2nd round cuts. So my goal now is to work my ass off so I can someday snub them. The following is my fantasy of that going down:
Grad School Head: "JLK, sir. She's just been given superfuckingmegahuge grant to study XYZ all over the world. People are calling her the next Freud/Milgram/Zimbardo/Eagly/Bem."
Dept Head: "Really? But she's so young! That's very impressive. I'm surprised she didn't apply here for grad school, seeing as we are like #3 SuperFuckingRockstarHolyShit program in the world."
Grad school Head: "Well actually she did apply here, back in '08. We rejected her in the second round because her GRE quant score was only in the 53rd percentile, though her verbal was in the 96th. We were her top choice. She didn't even apply to #1 SFRSHS program in the world in Awesome Climate, where her advisor at #4 choice program came from as a grad student."
Dept Head: 'Wow, you guys really screwed the pooch on that one. Are you telling me that I never even saw her application because of a goddamn GRE score, like any of us in psych really give a shit about math when we have all sorts of fancy programs to do stats for us?"
Grad School Head: "I know, it sucks. But we can't let everyone in, otherwise we would no longer be SFRSHS program #3 in the world. We had no way of knowing."
Dept Head: "Didn't she graduate Summa from somewhat-nearby-MRU? I think we have enough contacts over there to get her entire life story. We certainly DID have ways of knowing. You bastards in the grad school really fucked me over here. I hope you know that. Luckily I have a tenure-fast-track faculty position I can offer her with a kick-ass salary from our ginormous endowment that I was going to squander on a new evolutionary psych program. I'm sending her a letter right now."
****JLK opens letter in the mail from SFRSHS school****
JLK: (laughs) Assholes.
(sits down to write response):
Dear Dept Head of SFRSHS program,
I wasn't good enough for you when I was 26 and thought the sun was shining out of SFRSHS school's ass. You are delusional if you think I am going to take my superfuckingmegahuge grant money to your school when a $10k/yr stipend was too much to ask for back in '08.
Kiss my ass. If you have difficulty finding it, it will be in SFRSHS #1 in the world program in Awesome Climate, where I have been guaranteed tenure and a salary higher than yours.
Sincerely,
JLK
7 comments:
Yeah, those are fun fantasies. Comrade PhysioProf has a file with all of the rejection letters he received during his faculty job search. My fantasy is not to "snub" any of those departments that failed to appreciate his brilliance, but rather just to make them rue their error by his amazing success.
Incidentally, I am a faculty member at an institution that rejected me as an applicant for undergrad.
...even though we have spiffy programs to do statistics for you, it is extremely important to understand the math behind it. Otherwise your significant test may not be significant and result laughable...
@CPP - they are definitely fun. I could come up with a bunch more.
@Eugenie - I agree with you. And if the GRE tested stats, then it would be relevant. I also would have scored much, much higher.
I love this post.
As for admissions, I'm wondering how a piece of paper, a few numbers, and letters of recommendation are enough to tell a school who will succeed and who will not. It's not a very scientific process.
HA! I had a big concrete wall of grant, paper, and fellowship rejections in my office as a grad student. A faculty friend keeps an online website of comments from his rejected papers and grants, so the wall was my version of venting. One day, a visiting faculty member sat down in my office, looked around, and said "you have quite the reject wall going - why are you wasting energy on the negative? your pubs will take up the whole wall!" It dawned on me later that he was right and I spent the next hour redecorating.
The best revenge . . .
I want to be a fly on any of the walls of assorted faculty offices at universities that rejected CPP's job applications, whenever his name comes up.
@Sara - Thanks! What kills me about the process is that it's not like those few pieces of paper, some numbers, and some letters are evaluated equally! Otherwise someone with a fantastic application would get accepted everywhere, and someone with a marginal application wouldn't get accepted at all. You know, like undergraduate admissions. Which actually make sense.
@Anonymous - I'm not at that point. Yet. It's only this one school that irks me to no end because it's the one program I was working for. The program I almost lost my marriage over for the sake of the gpa. I killed myself working to get into that one school, and they just told me I didn't want it badly enough.
@Juniper - LOL! Being a fly on the wall in just about any context involving CPP would be very interesting. Mostly I want to know how much of his parlance is the same when you see him offline.
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