Admissions & Advising
Admissions & Advising
I'm hugely fortunate to work with some amazing doctoral students at USC, both at the Annenberg School and at other USC schools and departments.
Prospective doctoral students often ask me for advice on preparing applications and for time to meet to discuss their interests. While I wish that I could meet with everyone and offer detailed email replies, I sadly just don't have the bandwidth to do so. Instead, I offer the guidance below.
Two important notes:
This is relevant to the USC Annenberg doctoral program admissions process; I unfortunately don't know enough about other schools' admissions processes to offer guidance.
This is not official guidance and should not be taken as more definitive or authoritative than what the doctoral program chair or program administrator would say. And other professors at Annenberg may offer different advice; I don't claim that this officially speaks for program or my colleagues. This is simply the kind of info I offer to students who express interest in the program and want to talk / correspond with me. These are the kinds of things I've said when I've had time for individual conversations.
Okay! With these disclaimers, here's what I often tell prospective students:
Closely read the program website and contact admissions administrators if needed. I know that prospective students are understandably often wanting direct 1-1 conversations with faculty, but our administrators are incredibly knowledgeable, helpful, and often have far more current info on the program and patterns they've seen in successful applications.
Individual professors do not make admissions decisions. Students often ask me if I'm "accepting students" or how they can "work in my group," but Annenberg's doctoral admissions process is centralized and offers are made through a collaborative process. A rotating committee of faculty reviews files and makes admissions recommendations. There is a place in the application to indicate which faculty you are interested in working with and, if you like, you should list my name there.
Identify more than one faculty who you'd like to work with. When I've been on the doctoral admissions committee, I've seen reviewers favour students who are a good fit with the program and school as a whole, not people focused exclusively on one particular professor. The most successful applicants are those who have compelling reasons why they would like to work with 3-4 faculty.
You don't pick an advisor right away. In your first year, you are assigned a "mentor" who may or may not become your dissertation advisor. You will take classes with many Annenberg faculty, getting to know them, their work, and their working styles. You'll also have a qualifying exam and prospectus committee where you'll get to know faculty and styles. Your interests likely will--and should!--shift and you might realize that you'd benefit from working with someone other than / in addition to your first-year mentor. Switching advisors after your first year is common and not frowned upon, and many students have ended up having co-advisors. While you may end up working closely with a professor on grant-funded projects, your individual funding is not tied to any single professor or grant; it comes from the school. The general point is this: yes, identify a set of people you could work with and definitely express your affinities for faculty and research interests, but/and understand that part of the goal of the program is for you to develop and change your interests, learn new literatures, experiment with different methods, try out different stakes, etc.. You may be surprised by who you gel with as an advisor -- sometimes it's someone who fits with your research methods; sometimes it's someone who's interested in your questions; sometimes it's someone who shares your interest in a particular sub-field's development or normative stakes. And, finally, I say delicately: sometimes very "famous" faculty with highly visible profiles end up having little time to work or meet with advisees, or read drafts of work. Think about whether you're the kind of person who wants a lot of close collaboration and connection with an advisor, or whether you're okay with less frequent or more distant supervision.
The doctoral program is a research program. While a strong CV, interesting work experience, good grades, and supportive reference letters are all helpful, I've found that many faculty mostly focus on the personal statement and the writing sample. Other faculty may differ, but I want a personal statement to (1) clearly state a research question / puzzle / interest, (2) situate it in a literature / debate / scholarly conversation, (3) and tell me why it matters, what's at stake, why they have the experience or perspective to tackle it. The best question or puzzle is broad enough to accommodate twists and turns (not hyper focused on something extremely niche without saying why it matters) and is specific enough to be tractable within a doctoral program (e.g., saying that you want to study "the future of the Internet" or "the role of technology in social life" or "social media" are just too broad). I often hear students say they want to study "the impact of TikTok on identity" or "how Instagram shapes community". I'm not interested in these framings. They tend to be technodeterministic and focused on a particular technology in ways that makes inquiry narrow and dated. Such technologies can, of course, be sites where you might do fieldwork or gather data, but I don't think a good dissertation is about a particular technology. I'm instead interested in broader concepts that exist in relation to and develop through sociotechnical forces, that draw upon and contribute to social theory in rigorous and creative ways. I don't have the bandwidth to read statement drafts or offer feedback on outlines, but I'd suggest sharing it with colleagues / friends / family and being open to their thoughts.
Similarly, the writing samples should illustrate your ability to (1) ask a research question / pose a research puzzle, (2) design and execute an inquiry, (3) reflect on the value and importance of what you did. I think that faculty understand that research statements and writing samples exist in a particular time and context---we don't expect you to articulate your life's work or give us a sample of an opus---we just want to see evidence that you're ready to invest in research, and that you have a sense of what that means.
Finally, I often get inquiries from media and communication practitioners with various backgrounds (e.g., journalists, documentarians, public relations professionals, media artists, engineers and technology designers) and say the same thing to them -- Annenberg's program is focused on Communication research so they need to explain how their practice has led them to a proposed research question / puzzle. "Communication" is a broad, umbrella field (some call it a discipline but I wouldn't) with lots of room for inclusion, but a successful application is about tackling research.
Talk to current students. Many successful applicants connect with students currently in the program, who can offer excellent--and often very frank and honest--perspectives on what it's like to be in the program, at the school / university, and living in Los Angeles. They can often offer perspectives on the application process, the first year experience, and more. The doctoral program administrator is often able to connect prospective applicants with current students willing and able to talk about the program.
Explore options. Because the field of Communication is so big and diverse, there are often ways to tackle research questions through adjacent fields and at different schools. I strongly recommend considering many different doctoral programs, not only in Communication but also in fields / programs that may be reasonable homes for your interests. E.g., some of my students considered pursuing doctorates in Media Studies, Science & Technology Studies, Information, Human-Computer Interaction, American Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, and more. Be sure to consider not only other schools but also potentially other fields.
You'll be living in Los Angeles. Many people love LA and are attracted to its many positive qualities; others are less enamored with the city / region and struggle to find it home. The city is huge and there are many different ways of living here, but/and you'll be spending 5-ish years here and it should be somewhere that you want to live, where you can imagine being happy, where you'll do good work and build / enjoy strong relationships. That's a hugely important question for you and any family / partner who might be moving with you.