The department I graduated from failed to recruit any graduate students for the second year in a row. This means there won’t be any graduate courses taught at all in the next year.
The people who applied to the program this year were of inferior quality than usual (says the department) and those who were admitted declined the offer. This is weird given that the program has one of the most generous compensation packages on the continent (i.e. in the entire world.)
Yale Daily News gives an explanation but it’s so idiotic that I don’t even want to repeat it. I think the problem is that the program is outdated and needs urgent revamping. But that’s just my take on it. Who knows what prospective students are thinking.
Clarissa's Blog 
I’m so tired of this. Urgent revamping needed, but if it is done by people who are seen as the good guys in that dept., then revamping will be completely useless.
LikeLike
Not to be insensitive or ageist, but isn’t it time for people to start retiring? They’ve got to be in their 70s by now.
LikeLike
Are you sure that Yale is still quite so competitive in its offers as it has been traditionally? The most recent gossip I’ve heard about such things in my field is that there is a bit of an arms race going on among the wealthier private universities and some of them have sharply increased their grad student packages in recent years and are now regularly getting top grad students they wouldn’t have gotten ten years ago.
I know Yale has the money to be competitive with anyone, but it doesn’t sound like it’s a place that responds to change very quickly.
LikeLike
You are right, I might be behind the times on this. If it’s an issue of financing, I can definitely believe that.
If there is anybody in the thread who knows what Cornell, Brown and Columbia are offering stipend-wise, please share.
LikeLike
Your blog has been really good lately.
LikeLike