申請美國博士班 隨問即答

"University of Iowa Campus Courtyard" (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Tony Webster

大飽教授以前教育部跨國人才培育計畫的學生來問他申請美國博士班（社會科學）的事兒。在此以問答形式改寫節錄如下，供大家參考。

學生：你覺得一般要申請幾家學校比較合適？

大飽教授：The more (schools), the merrier. The marginal cost is low. The expected return is high. Apply widely and see what happens.

學生：美國這幾年收博士班有沒有什麼特別需要注意的地方？例如SoP裡絕對不要/要提到什麼？

大飽教授： Writing sample is key for applications to Ph.D. programs. My suggestion about SOP differs from most others’. I don’t like a dissertation proposal type of SOP. I always suggest that students write about themselves — who they are and what they are interested in. The rationale is that if you already have a dissertation planned out, why do you need to go to graduate school?

大飽教授： Also, unless you have spoken to a professor and you are sure that s/he really thinks highly of you, don’t make it sound like you will only want to work with him/her. There is too much intra-department politics that makes this a risky practice. But again, I am an outlier in these regards and you should feel free to disagree with me.

學生：那推薦信呢？

大飽教授： Be cautious about your letter of recommendation. Some professors have a different norm than the Americans, which may be a liability for your application. They might write both positive and negative things, or they will leave everything for you to draft and just sign it in a callous way. See if you can get someone who knows the American culture of the letter of recommendation to write it.

學生： 語言檢定成績真的重要嗎？

大飽教授： Once you pass a certain threshold, GRE and TOEFL won’t be held against you. People might think you are smart if you do well on the GRE, but that’s all.

學生： Publication 的部份呢？

大飽教授： Publication is tricky. It is good if you have published, but the quality of the book/paper is more important than where you get it published. Think of publication as a writing sample, except that a published paper carries more weight than an unpublished one. But the higher the hierarchy of selectivity you go, the less it matters. It is a writing sample, more representative than a manuscript because presumably you have invested a lot in it and it is more likely how good you really are after some real hard work.

學生： 如果我在sop中提到我有寫信給Professor Star，他鼓勵我申請，會有任何幫助嗎？

大飽教授： First of all, you should apply widely. You cannot estimate your chances. Nobody can. It is a stochastic process. Then come back to your question, whether you should mention it really depends on how enthusiastic Professor Star is about your application. You need to read between the lines. They will always encourage you to apply. That doesn’t mean anything. So, the short answer is you should apply to this school for sure. It is unclear whether you should mention Professor Star and hard to advise how you should write about your exchange with her/him without seeing the real interaction.

學生： 哈哈，好。我知道你的意思了。那我的問題大概是這樣，真的很謝謝老師！

大飽碎碎念：其實每個問題都沒有絕對的答案，這是一系列他想法中的一部分，和問的學生是誰也有關係，但為了學生隱私，這些回答問題時的特殊考量都掩蓋掉了。歡迎有興趣申請出國念書的同學直接來問大飽。