The rites of spring

Every spring I get depressed. Last month I had the stunning realization that graduate student recruitment is a major cause of my spring depression. Each year, as the days lengthen, graduate programs engage in their ritualistic seduction of prospective students. In the past 15 years, US institutions, including the most elite and respected, have evolved mating displays worthy of birds and fish. The strongest applicants are flown across the country, treated to weekends on the beach, dinner at faculty homes, special lectures and one-on-one meetings with faculty and students. All this effort is intended to convince the students to select one program, or institution, for their graduate study. For several months the top cohort of students (which I suspect is disconcertingly small, because many of these students seem to encounter one another at several interviews and to trade impressions of different graduate programs) undergoes a grueling series of visits. Some students apply to eight or nine programs, and visit each of them. I have seen students in tears about their senior theses being compromised by the endless interviews. I have seen faculty alter their travel plans to conform with their institution’s recruitment days. I have found myself comparing notes with colleagues at other institutions about our common applicants. Each April, I am annoyed by the shockingly large number of students holding offers from five or more graduate programs who don’t have the grace to decline offers of admission in a timely fashion so that offers can be made to deserving students on the waiting lists. Each year I am astounded by some of the reasons offered by students who decide to go elsewhere, proving that the decision-making processes of young adults are not for people over 35 to try to fathom. Each year I am touched and amused by the notes written by students who attempt to soften their rejection of us with kind words about us and our program. Why have we evolved these complex mating games? The answer is that most of our brightest American college graduates are not choosing to pursue graduate studies in basic science. Although there are many able, even brilliant, foreign students clamoring for entry into American programs, much of the funding for graduate students is restricted to American citizens or permanent residents.