Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Shenanigans at the APA

An anonymous commenter writes:

"Is there a blog that gives updates on the shenanigans going down now at the APA Eastern? Inquiring minds want to know!"

Yes, anon, there is, and it is this blog. So, people, give us your shenanigans, your gossip, your stories of heartbreak, and your wild conjectures about the recently concluded APA meetings.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought I heard somebody loudly snoring during Korsgaard's presidential address.

Anonymous said...

For those of you down and out about having no or few interviews, take the following rather shocking information into account (given to me by a very reliable source).

1. At least two top 5 programs had candidates with not a single interview and at least two with only one interview.
2. At least two top 15 programs had no interviews for their best candidate.

The above facts don't get you jobs, but they may make you feel less cruddy about your dossier.

Anonymous said...

Well, I feel all better now.

About not going into debt for grad school, anyway.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous at 8:10 AM, thanks for sharing this. Your statement of your first point is however a little ambiguous. Are you saying:

1) that each of at least two top 5 programs had both one or more candidates with no interviews and one or more candidates with only one interview; or

2) that at least two top 5 programs had a candidate with no interview and that at least two top 5 programs had candidates with only one interview?

Either way, I'll confess I'm not too terribly surprised by this information (though it is very useful anecdotal evidence). This just seems consistent with the other data, e.g. massive university budget cuts, canceled searches, weak October and November JFP's, and the anecdotal evidence that some of the departments which did interview at the APA were interviewing fewer candidates than normal.

Anonymous said...

Miss America,

Apologies for the ambiguity. Here is the info again.

1. At least two programs in the top 5 had at least one candidate receive no interviews and had at least two candidates receive only one interview.
2. Also, at least one 6-15 program and at least one 16-30 program had their 'best' candidate receive no interviews.

So the market took a chunk out of everyone it seems. Of course, some folks still had a dozen or so interviews all at tippity top places, but it appears safe to say that for this year a "handful" of interviews became the new "shitload" of interviews.

Good Luck!

Anonymous said...

I'm at a top 16-30 program and I didn't get any interviews. Maybe I'm our best candidate!

Anonymous said...

That's interesting. I'm in a department that isn't even ranked in the overall rankings (we rank decently in a couple of the area rankings though) and as far as I know everyone job hunting at the moment got at least 1 interview.