This past Saturday marked the deadline to accept and decline offers from Ph.D. programs, which made for a very exciting and stressful day for myself, as well as several others in my shoes. We’d all ordered the app sampler, and now it was time to pick the main course.
The somewhat deceiving thing about the application process is that it doesn’t give the applicants much sense of what the program they’re applying for is actually like. By the end of February, I had the immense luck (or agony) of choosing between four Ph.D. programs. One of them was Stevens, but even that would present different opportunities compared to my undergrad, and the other three required loads of research to learn more about what I’d be getting into.
So, March and the first half of April were spent reaching out to faculty and students at these institutions, scheduling many a Zoom meeting, and in one case making a two-hour trek to visit their campus — all while I was preparing for the Stevens Dramatic Society’s musical, and working on my senior research project. I would recount the main points from these encounters in a spreadsheet that also included a pros and cons list and rankings that changed almost every week.
By the week of the 15th, I was starting to get overwhelmed. The common advice I got was: “It’s a big decision, but whatever you decide will be right.” This put that big decision in my hands, which was a struggle at times: how do I choose the right main course when all I have is the menu, and other peoples’ recommendations, which are helpful, but ultimately based on their own tastes and not my own?
Last Friday and Saturday, I thought I had everything figured out. I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and accept an offer at a school a little ways away, with an applied math program that had exciting opportunities in computational biology, neuroscience, and scientific computing. I told close friends and family that I was planning to accept this offer, but there was still a feeling of nervousness through it all.
Finally, on the afternoon of the 15th, I opened my application to Stevens, and saw that, a few days prior, I had been offered an additional fellowship on top of one I had already received, which would provide a significant amount of financial support for the next four years.
Then I thought about all the opportunities I could have here in these coming years — exciting applied math research, which has a math rather than applied focus, with an excellent advisor; living in the same city as my girlfriend and friends who are also staying at Stevens or in the area; and closer proximity to my family in a wonderful location. All this, with the added financial security, sealed the deal for me.
So despite telling lots of people I’d be going to one school, only to switch last minute and finally pick Stevens as the right course for me (and frantically inform all those people I’d misled them), I’m incredibly excited and relieved to have made the choice. My only bit of advice is to make sure it feels right in your gut before deciding among choices — especially with the app sampler, as it is your gut that will have to break down all that food once you swallow it!
