Denied adminssion by DSU for Dr of Science

I got some good vibes from Capitol, I talked to the Dean and she accepted my IA cert from NDU as 4 elective courses and waived the test for non CISSP holders. NDU has partnerships with ~20 univerisities to transfer credits for MS/PHD. I wasn't aware of the program until a few weeks ago, so i just got everything sent in, July 1st is the deadline. My only concern with Capitol is the cohort program, they perfer you to take 2 courses each semester with no break year round and finish is 3 years. With all my travel, deployments, etc, I am hoping they would allow me to take 1 course each semester, 2 every couple semester and finish in 4-5 years. Work will do some tuition reimbursement, but i will have to pay majority myself. The Georgetown Master of Public Policy is a special program, fully funded.

 

Thanks for the information, it's appreciated and it helps me evaluate the program. In return I'll offer an opinion that may prove helpful down the line.

From a pure admissions standpoint, here are what I consider the red flags that could lead to non-admission:

1. No thesis from the Masters program will require more guesswork in regards to your research path and more work from your dissertation advisor to develop a suitable research framework. Additionally, it makes it more difficult to assess your ability to write without a searchable writing sample.

2. Your recommenders are not seemingly related to your academic qualifications. While they may have been professors in the past, if your masters is from East Carolina I'd expect some recommendations from that faculty.

3. No GRE makes it near impossible to evaluate you against students who did submit the GRE.

So ultimately what your application would say to an admissions committee is that of the four ways they have to objectively evaluate someone in a recent context, they have no data for three of them. The fourth is GPA and transcript.

The rest of your experience and capability is great and makes you worthy of consideration, (certainly professional admiration) but it's not applicable to a doctoral program save as differentiation against similar candidates with similar data sets. IMHO.

 

Well I guess I am up. Thanks Cyber for the introduction. I cannot speak for the business end, but I can give you the history end. I have been in the program since July 2009. It took me 1.5 years to get in. I have given myself until December 2012 to finish, but that maybe wishful thinking. When you are in the UNISA program, you are on your own. When I say it, I mean it. There are no professors to run down the hall and speak with ( although you can email them or call them, to which I have). For me, I have two co-chairs on my dissertation committee. One is at UNISA and the other one is here in the United States. The one professor at UNISA oversees the nuts and bolts, as he put it, of the exercise. The other here in the United States is an expert in my field. I have a dissertation coach ( I would suggest it) and that helps a ton. She keeps me in line and on task. I am about to turn in chapters one, two and three of my seven chapter dissertation in the next two weeks (this, by the way is my rough draft. It has not been seen by my commitee yet. I am SURE there are tons of rewrites left..LOL) . The other chapters, late summer. After it passes through the committee of two, my dissertation goes to a committee of four experts in my field. They are chosen by my dissertation committee. After I pass those four, then I am finally done. That, in a nutshell, is it. It is not easy. If you do not have the drive, you are in trouble. It is not a program for those who need to be handheld.

 

I do think things are changing. As more and more folks are earning UNISA PhDs, I think barriers will be broken. For me, I am not worried. The PhD, where you earned it, will matter less and less in history. It will matter as to your teaching, research and writing. Why do I say that? We have a PhD from Michigan teaching for us. Michigan. Yep, top five school in history. He cannot buy a break. He is adjuncting for us. So, when I finally get my UNISA PhD, I will have my teaching, researching and writing to fall back on. I can also tell you (from first hand experience), it is a point system that you need to get in. For most positions at the community college and university level, it a point system that gets you to the interview level.

 

I believe that expectations can be too high when applying to doctoral programs. Good schools have very little acceptance rate (less than 5%). DSU is not Harvard but it is also a not for profit school that relies mainly on full time faculty so research supervision capacity is limited. My guess is that they have too many applicants so they accept the best based on school, experience, research background etc.
A high GPA is not really guarantee of admission into a doctoral program, there are many factors to consider.
Open admissions schools like Capella, Walden, etc have high acceptance rates because their faculty is mainly formed by adjuncts that are hired on demand so there is no problem with capacity.

 

I know a guy in Canada that is an associate professor with a PhD from a Cuban University. His secret was to get a Canadian accounting designation.

In the good old days, when demand for IT faculty was huge, there were many people with degrees from places like India, Pakistan, China that got tenure track positions in Canada mainly because there was a demand for it.

In short, a PhD from UNISA would work for fields in high demand such accounting and finance but probably wouldn't really do much for you for saturated fields such as math, biology, english, etc.

 

Community colleges and Universities are unionized in Canada. Many times adjuncts are given preference if they qualify as internal applicants based on a seniority system. When this happens, a PhD from UNISA would trump a PhD from Harvard if the first has more seniority.
Not all the Universities have this system but many do, so I agree with Tireman that for many a PhD from UNISA or any other school wouldn't make a difference as many other factors are more important.

 

I would guess that especially with foreign degrees the key question is going to be the publication track record. From my experience this factor is getting some enormous weight since high quality journals somewhat ensure a form of across - the - line benchmark and make the academic potential of PhDs more comparably.

 

This is exactly what I was thinking. Also, if I remember correctly, this program at DSU is relatively new and so they are going to be especially picky about who gets in because the program is probably under special scrutiny.

 

Indiana State University: PhD in Technology Management via DL
Indiana State University: College of Technology: Ph.D. in Technology Management

 

I was also denied admission. I had so-so undergraduate gpa (1974), 3.62 for MS in Computer Methodology (hybrid of CS and CIS in 1993). I was waived on the GRE due to more than 15 years.

I have over 35 years working experience, lately in network security.

My MS was from Baruch College/CUNY. I wrote thesis on network security that was later the basis for a published paper.

I have also over 20 years teaching as adjunct.

In the letter, I was told that my credentials were impressive but there were too many applicants for too few places. I wonder about that. I send my application back in September of 2010 and had to wait for over 8 months. I was encouraged to apply as early as possible, with the impression that the earlier the application was received the better.

I also think that my age played a role in the decision. Hard to prove though.

 

I really am not trying to be a jerk, but are you serious? You resume is impressive for sure, but you sound like you have sour grapes over the fact that there were other candidates deemed by DSU to be a better fit for their program than you. Why can't you take them at their word rather than trying to establish some sort of elaborate conspiracy on their part to specifically exclude you?

 

From what I understand about selective/competitive admissions process, most applicants can be put into one of 3 catagories:
1)Definitely admit
2) Definitely reject
3) Decide after seeing the the entire applicant pool.

Most folks fall into category 3.

One thing I have noticed about your, and the other denied applicants experience with DSU is that you both seemed to be interested in the Computer Security concentration. My bet is that the (vast?) majority of people applying to that program were applying for the Computer Security concentration. Considering that it is probably the least expensive doctorate with a Computer Security specialty (certainly the least expensive RA-DL option) and how big the computer security industry is, I can imagine that they were flooded with applicants for that concentration.

The challenge is that it appears that less than 1/3 (about 5, by my count) of the faculty actually specialize in that area. So the majority of applicants are applying for a position in the concentration with a minority of faculty to act as research advisers. Add to that my suspicion that they may give a little extra preference to folks who did their MS at DSU, and the end result is you have a ton of qualified applicants fighting for a few spots.

 

I am somewhat confused. UNISA? When I google I find University of South Africa and University of South Australia. Which is the UNISA that is being referred to?

 

The application didn't have anything that asked for the specialization.

 

UNISA (South Africa) is one of the largest distance learning universities in the world.

 

I am in the doctoral program in history at the University of South Africa.

 

Remember the "Statement of Purpose" essay in the application? That is where they would get that information. My bet is that the majority of folks expressed a research interest in Computer Security.

 

thyslip and mjfischer... what specialization were you planning on pursuing?

I've been thinking about applying for Fall 2012.

Edit - as mcjon77 suggests, it wouldn't surprise me if the real overload in applicants is in computer security.