So this guy is an employed PhD (at the job he "wanted most") and writes a blog post about how emotionally traumatic receiving rejection notices at normal (if not below normal) rates was. I don't get it.
Rejections hurt, period.
Rejection Letters for a faculty position
81–84 of 84 posts
Re: Rejection Letters for a faculty position
#82Sounds like the "academic edition" of the Rejection Therapy game: http://rejectiontherapy.com
But on a more serious note, Mark reframed his rejections into a positive learning opportunity for many people. Thanks for doing this Mark.
Re: Rejection Letters for a faculty position
#83Having written a few of these in my time I'd like to pick out the best and the worst. The worst is surely from the University of Colorado at Boulder. I find the prose florid and demeaning. Lowlights include implying that many "well qualified individuals" applied, using a sentence structure that clearly suggests you are not counted amongst them. Yale runs a close second worst, for their brutal and brief suggestion tha…
One thing that struck me, and in my eyes is the worst, is the response from Colgate. Just starting with "Dear Applicant" makes it seem like they don't care. Granted they may have already finished the search but they could still at least address the letter to an individual person and not a generic person.
Re: Rejection Letters for a faculty position
#84Mark - thanks for posting these. I was the recipient of my own batch of such rejection letters during my faculty search in 2002, so I know the feeling exactly. I ended up going to Harvard (not bad!) but the sting of rejection still hurts, no matter where it's from. These days I take it most universities do everything by email, but back in 2002 it was still almost exclusively done by paper mail. Somehow a paper reject…
Hi Matt -- while we're on the topic of academic applications (and the likely rejections), I wanted to say how insightful I've found your blog posts regarding the general academia vs. industry matter to be, in particular since I need to make a similar decision myself very soon. So thanks! :)
Thanks!