next »

[pamplemoose]

I posted here a few months ago, asking whether AA plays a role in graduate admissions.

Since, I've been accepted to a few top-5 programs in my field.  (Yay!)

However, there's this little voice in the back of my head that wonders, "did they take you because you are a minority?"  I have to keep telling myself that my awards, grades, and stellar letters of recommendation have nothing to do with my race, that I am qualified, that I managed to distinguish myself among the 100 peers in my department at my HYPS undergrad, and I will do the same in graduate school. 

I remember freshman year of college, when I went to register for classes for the first time, we were given this official-looking paper with all the essential bio data, including race.  Although on my application, I checked off "White" and "Caribbean-American," someone in the admissions office interpreted this to mean, "Black," which is all it said about my ethnic background on the registration form.   At 17, I concluded I was accepted to help them meet their URM targets.  Such was the beginning of a complex over my head for a very long time until realizing, rather belatedly, that I was more capable than most of my classmates.

Some posters may say, "but then you shouldn't have checked off the box!"  But really, certain aspects of my application make my ethnicity pretty obvious.

I know I should probably just count my blessings, but I was wondering if anyone here has had similar anxieties after being accepted to a highly competitive grad program or TT position.  I guess I'm soliciting a constructive way to think about this.

[bewildered]

I bet I wouldn't have gotten the interview for my 3rd job if my diss director hadn't had a real strong "in" with the dept. chair.

Life's too short to worry about such things.

[larryc]

I made the jump from an MA at an obscure regional college to one of the top PhD programs in my field because my MA mentor happened to be close friends with Dr. Famous at the PhD program. My wife is very beautiful and charming (and also brilliant and hard working), but whenever anything good happens to her she has this really agonizing self-doubt if it is "just because I am so 'nice' ". My college just hired a new president, he got the job because the other finalists just happened to find other jobs and the search committee was too lazy to start over.

Life is not a meritocracy no matter how much we wish and pretend. Stuff happens for all kinds of reasons, you can't even know why much of the time. Just take the cards that you have been dealt and play your best game.

And congratulations!

[croaker]

It may have helped get their attention, but multiple top programs wouldn't be accepting you if they didn't think you were a great choice.  Best of luck!

[locutus]

Don't play that game. It's of no use and only self defeating.

Life is not a meritocracy no matter how much we wish and pretend. Stuff happens for all kinds of reasons, you can't even know why much of the time. Just take the cards that you have been dealt and play your best game.

Listen to LarryC here.

[kaysixteen]

What is an HYPS undergrad?

[onion]

What is an HYPS undergrad?

I think it's shorthand for "Harvard Yale Princeton..." but I don't know what the "S" is.  I don't think it's Stanford.  I find the whole acronym a little gagworthy, but that's just me.

[vagarh]

I have to keep telling myself that my awards, grades, and stellar letters of recommendation have nothing to do with my race, that I am qualified, that I managed to distinguish myself among the 100 peers in my department at my HYPS undergrad, and I will do the same in graduate school. 
[...]
Such was the beginning of a complex over my head for a very long time until realizing, rather belatedly, that I was more capable than most of my classmates.

While I don't doubt that you were accepted to your grad programs based on your ability, and that if ethnicity did come into play, that you shouldn't worry about it, there were these two lines that I wanted to comment on.

Since you're moving into grad school, and a top 5 program at that, you should be prepared for the fact that it will be significantly harder to distinguish yourself and that you'll almost certainly be no more capable than the rest of your cohort. They'll all be distinguished from their own programs, so you'll be in an environment with a significantly higher standard of excellence.

All this is to say that if once you're in your program, you feel like you're not excelling enough, remember that the standards have changed: it won't automatically mean that you were 'right' about being a 'diversity' admit.

[bigsky]

I am in my current position at least partially due to being a diversity admit in grad school. My grades were okay but not stellar. I entered with students that were exceptional undergrads (4.0 gpa, extremely high GRE scores ,etc.). However, after a few years I persisted and some of the "more qualified" struggled and/or dropped out. I am now tenured, officially as of last week, and they are doing other things.

In the end, don't worry about how or why you got there, you did. Now you simply need to follow through. It is nice to have options, congratulations and best of luck.

[dr_zen]

Yes, congratulations.

I agree with LarryC:

Life is not a meritocracy no matter how much we wish and pretend. Stuff happens for all kinds of reasons, you can't even know why much of the time. Just take the cards that you have been dealt and play your best game.

But I would also add that you may not have been dealt the same cards as everyone else. Like you, I had my suspicions that I was an AA admit, but if you believe in the principle of affirmative action, you can also use this as a source of strength rather than a weakness. I found that I did have a different perspective, read different books, and understood them in different ways than my more mainstream peers. For a while I tried to speak, think, and act like the other students in my program and found that I could keep up the pretence but would always be at the back of the pack. When I focused on what was different about my approach, I excelled.

Yes, your ethnicity/race may have played a part but maybe this is something to be celebrated rather than feared.

I also had a similar experience to bigsky:

However, after a few years I persisted and some of the "more qualified" struggled and/or dropped out.

There's a lot to be said for the determination and plain out pigheaded-ness needed to resist the continual questioning of your merits.

[pamplemoose]

Since you're moving into grad school, and a top 5 program at that, you should be prepared for the fact that it will be significantly harder to distinguish yourself and that you'll almost certainly be no more capable than the rest of your cohort. They'll all be distinguished from their own programs, so you'll be in an environment with a significantly higher standard of excellence.

Thank you for reminding me of that.  I plan to do my damnedest to rise to the occasion.

When I focused on what was different about my approach, I excelled.

You're right.  I have always found this true as well.  It's a bit easier to be innovative, I think, because my life experience leads me to questions, or at least angles to attack those questions, no one is considering.

However, after a few years I persisted and some of the "more qualified" struggled and/or dropped out. I am now tenured, officially as of last week, and they are doing other things.

Congratulations to you, too!

I think it's shorthand for "Harvard Yale Princeton..." but I don't know what the "S" is.  I don't think it's Stanford.  I find the whole acronym a little gagworthy, but that's just me.

I'm sorry to cause anyone such an unpleasant physical reaction.  It's the sort of shorthand I grew up with on the college boards.  In order to better convey the massive self-doubt I harbored as an undergraduate, I thought that information would be useful.  But I'd guess you'd have to know my background.  Suffice it to say, it was a very intense fish-out-of-water experience.  And yes, the S stands for Stanford.

*   *   *

Anyway, thank you for all of your stories.  They certainly helped put things in perspective.

I should just think of my first college boyfriend, who was rejected to nearly all the less competitive schools where he applied, but was accepted to my UG.  On the back of his application, he wrote the names of about 15 members of his family who had gone there since the 1800s.  It was his birthright, apparently.

[jackofallchem]

If you believe all that you have said about your academic achievement, don't worry about it.  You are just getting some cold feet.  There is an old story about medical schools.  When you first get there, you look at all of the 1st in their class, Ivy League 4.0 students and think "why am I here?".  After one semester, you look at all of the 1st in their class, Ivy League 4.0 students and think "what are THEY still doing here". 

In graduate school, a decent background in the basic material and a lot of hard work are what is important. Even at top programs, a top student at even a small (but rigorous) school can do well with effort.  Although life is not a meritocracy, that doesn't mean that merit isn't rewarded.  It just means that those without merit sometimes get rewarded too.

[asterix]

What is an HYPS undergrad?

I think it's shorthand for "Harvard Yale Princeton..." but I don't know what the "S" is.  I don't think it's Stanford.  I find the whole acronym a little gagworthy, but that's just me.

Certainly the "S" must be for our own "STFU", no?

[daurousseau]

What is an HYPS undergrad?

I think it's shorthand for "Harvard Yale Princeton..." but I don't know what the "S" is.  I don't think it's Stanford.  I find the whole acronym a little gagworthy, but that's just me.

The S is for State Fair Community College.

[onion]

What is an HYPS undergrad?

I think it's shorthand for "Harvard Yale Princeton..." but I don't know what the "S" is.  I don't think it's Stanford.  I find the whole acronym a little gagworthy, but that's just me.

The S is for State Fair Community College.

I have it on good authority that it does, in fact, stand for "South-by-Southwest State Fair Satellite Campus of State Fair Community College."  But SXSWSFSCSFCC is too long to tack on to the end of  "HYP".