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[ABD]

I'm not sure whether this is the right forum in which to post, but I hope that you'll be able to give me some advice.  I'm an ABD who has recently learned from a third party that my main advisor had written a rather terse recommendation letter for a fellowship, which had the effect of causing the fellowship committee to doubt my credentials.  To date, I've received rejection letters from all of the fellowships that I applied for but one (still pending), and have a bad feeling that the same letter was sent to all.

I had no indication from my advisor that he did not feel I was making good progress, so this caught me by surprise.  He just received tenure last year from our Ivy League university, and is on sabbatical this year.  I will have to assume that I caught him in "vacation mode," although other students have had problems with poor and/or lax advisorship.  Another issue is now that I'm married, he seems to assume that my spouse is a form of financial aid and has asked on an earlier occasion, "Can't X (spouse) support you?"

My wonderfully supportive second advisor has suggested that before the next round of fellowships, I should sit down with my main advisor and emphasize what my funding situation is and that I need his full attention in supporting my applications.  The problem is, I literally don't know how to put this into words.  It seems obvious that students need funding in order to get their work done.  How can I explain to my advisor that it's important for me to get fellowships and that I need a strong recommendation letter from him?

[anon]

I am curious, are you a minority woman?

[anon]

Ask yourself honestly whether your advisor will ever support you (when it comes to writing you a letter, helping you make contacts, providing you with useful feedback, etc.), because it may be that this person will never help you.  You can't make someone write you a good letter; they should want to do that.  If this man or woman does not want to help you, s/he will only sabotage your career.  I would talk to all of your other advisors about what comes next.

[first anon]

Explanation: I asked that question because in my experience and those whom I know, minority women were systematically denied funding and expected to rely on spouses or parents (even if they were 30, 40, 50, 60 years old) to support their PhD, Whereas caucasian males and even females don't have the same issues.  Bads letters of recom. can happen to anyone, but when they tell you to rely on your spouse is certainly odd.



If you are a minority woman:

 -You are walking on eggshells.  The chances are  even if you change supervision, the policy of not funding females from certain groups will follow you.  Complaining and discussing it hoping it will change will not change anything, and will make it much worse.  You will be labelled as a "nagger"

If you are not a minority female:
 -You are in a safer position, change your supervisor.  This person is only going to give you worse recommendations as you progress (or if you progress) to bring your academic  career to a halt.  

I don't mean to make you panic.  I'm talking from experience working as someone who had to deal with similar issues at an administrative level  in a university  setting.

Advice:

Do not complain, do not talk badly about your advisor to anyone (they will certainly tell her/him), and (quietly) try to find someone else to work with.

[Starbuck]

A good letter from a secondary advisor is better than a terse letter from a primary advisor.

[anon 2]

While I agree with "anon" and think that minorities receive less support (it is studied and documented), there are otehr factors involved most of which we don't know in this context.  One thing s for sure: Your advisor doesn't think very highly of you, you'd better watch your back.

[anon 2]

I also wanted to mention that despite what  the previous post says, for a new grad or an ABD you "have" to have your primary advisor as your referee to get grants and apply for jobs.   If you don't mention his name on your CV, it looks very fishy.

[ABD]

Thanks for everyone's feedback.  I have gotten good enough recommendation letters from my advisor before to land a traveling fellowship; however, I think what happened is that since he's gotten tenure last year, he's starting to slack off on advising duties.  Also, he was traveling extensively this year for lectures and fieldwork, and hasn't made much time for any of his students.

[Anon 3000]

I agree with the previous post that a good letter from a secondary member trumps a lousy one from the main advisor. I had a similar experience and I got  a highly competitive fellowship by asking someone who really supported my work, not the famous prof. who couldn't be bothered.

In my case, and maybe yours, too, you might find that the name of your adviser wouldn't open any doors for you. And in some cases, it might slam the door shut in your face!

BTW, other factors are probably behind the previous rejections than just the letter of recommendation. If someone on the search committee likes one candidate over the other, for whatever reason, that letter of recommendation won't mean anything. And then there's the politics of who's cozying up to whom. The system is whole lot less meritocratic than you may think.

[bizprof]

I would agree with Starbuck that a good letter from a secondary advisor can trump a terse one from your primary advisor, but with qualifications.  This is true IF:

-The credentials of the secondary advisor are at least equal to that of the primary one.

-Your primary advisor has not written a better letter for another candidate.

-Your primary advisor is known within the discipline to be either self-absorbed or a generally poor letter writer.

In other words, it all depends upon the experience the committee has had with the advisors in question and thus how they interpret her/his letter for you.

[been there done that]

I recently had the same situation.  My advisor wrote a letter of recommendation for me that was short (three sentences) and while not bad, was obviously not glowing.  She did it because she  wanted me to stay around longer and was deliberately sabotaging my chances (her own words, not me reading into it.)

She told me about the letter and I decided that just like what's been posted, a good letter from a secondary advisor is much better than a bad letter from anyone.  Without her letter, I applied for 25 jobs and got 15 interviews.  While I know I missed some jobs because of the obvious missing letter from my advisor, I have a tenure track job this fall and I'm much happier for it.  

Don't let other people determine the course of your life or career.  Do what's best for you.  Once you do, people will start coming out of the woodwork to tell you about their similar experiences.  

Good luck!

[to been there done that]

That's horrible.  Why would your advisor want you to stay around longer?  It's a big deal for a prof at a doctoral-granting U to say that they placed their student at such-and-such university.

[been there done that]

to been there done that wrote:

> That's horrible.  Why would your advisor want you to stay
> around longer?  It's a big deal for a prof at a
> doctoral-granting U to say that they placed their student at
> such-and-such university.

The reason my advisor wants me to stay around longer is that my salary is paid by an institutional training grant, and therefore I'm essentially free labor for her.  Also, my advisor doesn't seem to get the idea that if I end up with a faculty position it looks good for her.  She has a long track record of treating graduating students and postdocs moving on very poorly.  That and we've been having a long debate about how working at a SLAC is throwing my career away, blah  blah, blah... (I'm in the science where we still haven't done the math regarding too many PhDs produced for the hand-full of tenure track R1 faculty positions.)

[anon]

have you considered that ABD is not a real title?

[zz]

Returning to the initial message, I urge you to change advisor and ask that second great prof on your comiittee you mentioned to step in as advisor.
When I was ABD and actually in my second year of writing my dissertation, I went on the market to taste the waters. At my institution we also had the opportunity to have a third party look at the letters of recommendations. I was also very surprised when that person told me that not only my advisor's letter was weak but it also clearly showed she was stabbing me in the back. The third party ended by urging me to change advisor. This was at a time when I had more than half of my dissertation written and getting ready to send out my dossier for job applications.

The first thing I did was to contact all other members of my committee individually and confidentially to inform them of what was going on. The first prof I contacted was that second great committee member. I asked him if he would agree to take over as main advisor; he immediately accepted. I then met privately with the Director of Graduate Studies in my department as well as with the Assistant Dean for my college to inform them and to make sure of the procedures I needed to follow. Both gave me their support. Finally, all other committee members immediately accepted to remain on the committee and I found an additional prof. to replace the "nasty" advisor (you want to kick him/her out of the committee).

When all of this was set, I had to do the most difficult part. I asked for a private meeting with the former advisor and told her that considering the progress of my work in the last few months and our different points of view  I thought it was better to stop our collaboration at this point. I added that this had nothing to do with her style as a teacher (I did have a great learning experience in her courses). On that day, she seemed to take it very well although I noticed her change of face when after she asked me if I was quitting the PhD program! and I responded that I never quit on anything and that I was continuing with the rest of the committee. After that and since then, she never talked to me again, and to this day, gives me very nasty looks when we see each other at conferences.

But with my new advisor on board, I received three tenure track job offers at the end of that same year, defended in April of that year. Three years ago I received tenure and even had offers from other schools. None of this would have happened without that decision. In fact, to this day, there are still graduate students I knew when I was there who are still there, ABD, working with that former advisor...