by Chris Cumo

We’ve all heard the myth about the talented young idealist who applied for an assistant professorship at Northwestern Trans Mississippi Valley State University in Idaho only to receive a rejection letter six months later stating that she had been among 300 applicants. If the search committee had considered all candidates of roughly equal merit, our applicant had had just one chance in 300 of landing the job. The odds of contracting yellow fever from a mosquito bite while on vacation in Bangladesh are probably more favorable.

But like a camel passing Houdini-like through the eye of a needle, one might enter the academy by another route. Consider administration. Ronald H. Heck, Chair of the Department of Educational Administration, has served on search committees at the University of Hawaii-Manoa in Honolulu for administrators at several ranks. The typical job advertisement attracts 50 applications, two-thirds of which “just don’t meet the minimum or desired qualifications,” says Heck. This leaves roughly 16 candidates for, say, Assistant Director of Paleolithic Studies in the Department of Anthropology. You’re in the hunt because you meet the minimum requirements; otherwise you wouldn’t have applied. You’re odds are not one in 300 but one in 16 (six percent), still low but 20 times better than your chances of teaching at that university in Idaho. Even if the same dynamics apply for both jobs, you’re chances of becoming Assistant Director are still six times better than those of becoming assistant professor.

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