on admissions and advising

Music: R.E.M.: Dead Letter Office (1987)

We have recently completed our graduate admissions here at the University of Texas. For my "area" of the department, "Rhetoric and Language," all seven faculty vet every application (this year we had 70), which I understand is unusual. Other programs have an admissions committee, while others may have the director of graduate studies make the decisions. Needless to say, the process is time consuming and sometimes quite pained, as there are more strong applications than we have "slots." This year we effectively had three funded slots. That's it. 3 slots, 70 applications. The fairest way we have come up with is to rank each application with a zero (no admission), a one (admit), or a two (admit and fund). These rankings are then assembled on a spreadsheet from highest rank to lowest. Then we discuss every candidate.

How does the process shake down? Typically, we admit more than we can fund with the idea that not all un-funded people will come. Last year was an exception, which is why this year we had to admit less. Part of the process includes "tentative" advisors: unless one of us says that we will advise a given student, they are not admitted. There are often stellar applications that do not get admitted because there is no faculty person to work with him or her. For example, say someone was interested in legal rhetoric, and more specifically, legal rhetoric in the military. While it's conceivable such a person could successfully get by here, he or she would probably do much better with someone that has a background in legal rhetoric, the military, and so forth. Someone who was interested in popular culture would be much more likely to be admitted because a lot of us claim that area of expertise. In short, admissions are based on "fit."

Yet "fit" is also constrained by advisorly workload. When we make admissions and assign a temporary advisor, the idea is that the student will gradually gravitate toward that faculty who they want to work with. Typically, the advisor is the temporary one assigned, but not always. Regardless, the idea is that if a student is admitted that they will not be stranded; if all else fails, the temporary advisor agrees to see them through. Now the potential problem should come into view: if a faculty is not "growing" in size, there comes a point at which a given faculty cannot take on more advisees (unless a bunch of folks matriculate, and this tends to come in waves).

Since I've been at the University of Texas, I have purposefully not taken on advisees the first couple of years, which means I didn't speak for anyone during the admissions process until relatively recently. When it appeared I was going to be promoted, I took on two folks already here without an advisor, and then two new incoming students last year. This year I have agreed to take on four, which brings my total advisorly load to eight students if all four come this year (keep in mind I am not tenured yet). My gut feeling is that I am at capacity here, although thankfully only about two at a time will be dissertating. This means that I don't believe I should take on any more students for a while.

Some weeks ago I asked four very productive, full professors what they thought of admissions and advising loads. One of them said that faculty can easily carry a dozen or so, as long as they are "staggered" and not finishing at the same time. Another warned about this observation, saying that some take longer, some get done sooner, and some stay right on track, which occasionally creates a "log jam." One of them said the average load of advisees for associate professors was 6-7 students, while for full professors the number cold be as high as a dozen. Finally, one of them said she only takes one advisee at a time, and tells others that she will sit on committees but will not advise.

Since I am relatively new to advising (I had one MA, the fabulous Roger Lamar, at LSU), I'm trying to fumble through it as best I can, balancing the service needs of the department, the mentoring needs of students, and my own need to get my own writing done. Everyone I've talked to has said the advising process is immensely rewarding and one of the best experiences of this job. I don't doubt that. I'm wondering how other people negotiate these dynamics: how do you navigate your advisee load? When do you say "no?" Does your department have a system of protection in place for juniors? What advice do folks have to share?