2012 - 2013

3. TA offer process and criteria

3.1. Introduction

Many questions TA applicants have involve how TA offers are made, and what criteria are used to determine who receives a TA offer. This section provides some details on these issues.

3.2. Other Sources of Information on TA Positions

There are two sections on teaching assistantships in the Graduate Student Handbook. In the "Financial Assistance" section, the subsection "Teaching Assistantships" provides an overview of the application process, criteria, terms of assistantships, duties and requirements, etc. The subsection "Teaching Assistantship Departmental Policy" gives a list of general policies. This booklet will be abbreviated as "GSH" below.

The CS TA website contains a variety of information for CS TAs and TA applicants. The FAQ section in this handbook and TA Announcements page are the two links most useful to people curious about the how to apply for a TA position, and what their chances of getting one are.

Sometimes the department will hold TA information sessions or updates for any interested CS student. These are usually announced through the CS grads student mailing list.

3.3. Offers to Incoming Students

It is department policy "To save at least eight appointments for new students and make the balance from continuing students. New student appointments are made as part of the admissions process, based on merit." [GSH]. Note eight is a minimum; in practice the specific number of new students we appoint depends on a number of factors including how plentiful we expect TA positions to be, how many exceptional students apply, and how many students accept our offers.

Since new offers are made as part of the admissions process, which new students receive a TA offer is decided as part of the application review process. This decision is made by the Graduate Admissions Chair, in consultation with the graduate admissions committee and the TA Supervisor. The criteria used to determine which applicants get offers are the usual ones for admission (academic record, potential for graduate work, etc.); however, TA potential is also a consideration.

Students who do not receive offers during admission are welcome to apply for any open positions when they arrive in Fall. A few TA positions may be open at the beginning of Fall classes; however, students arriving without support should realize that the chance of getting a TA when they arrive here in Fall is small. Most students who arrive here without support are eventually able to find support, if not through a TA then through an RA or through other forms of support. However, prospective students should neither be overly optimistic nor overly pessimistic in this regard.

3.4. Offers to Current TAs

Students who currently have a TA have a good, but not guaranteed, chance of getting an offer for the next semester. This decision is based on a number of criteria (see the criteria section below); this section discusses a few additional considerations.

It is department policy that students are eligible for a total of six semesters of TA support. This does not include any summer TA support, and is irrespective of the percentage of appointment; moreover, the department can provide exemptions to this rule based on departmental need [GSH]. Note that the need is "departmental" (and so could cover, for example, rehiring an especially strong TA or a TA for a hard-to-fill TA position), but it is not the need of the student nor of their faculty advisor.

Having TAed less than three aggregate years does not guarantee a student continuing support, as a number of criteria are considered when TAs are appointed or reappointed. Long-term TAs should be particularly careful that they are making good degree progress, they can TA a number of different courses, and that their TA work is of exceptional quality.

Students who come in with TA support as part of the admission process are guaranteed an assistantship for one year; however, they are almost always given a second, and in some cases a third, year of TA support. Such students should make good degree process, do well in their TA work, and be able and willing to take on more advanced TA assignments (e.g., for advanced classes) in their second or third year. Note that second or third year support, while highly likely, is not guaranteed in case of poor degree progress or poor performance in TA duties.

3.5. Types of Offers

Most TA offers are 50% offers. Such offers include full (or near full) tuition and health coverage benefits. A student with a 50% offer is usually assigned to work an average of 20 hours per week on one class; however, in some cases, the department splits the appointment between 2 classes.

Some TA offers are 25%. In this case the offer is for an average of 10 hours per week, and the offer includes about half the tuition and health care costs, with the student being responsible for the remainder. On rare occasion, offers are for other percentages, such as 12.5%.

The department prefers to make 50% appointments with each TA assigned to a single class. However, due to our enrollment patterns, we have recently been forced to make more split 50% appointments, as well as more 25% appointments.

3.6. Students Without Support

The CS Department supports a number of graduate students through TA appointments, and professors' research grants support many more. However, we are not able to support all CS graduate students. Students should realize TA appointments are highly competitive, and we get many more applicants than the number of available positions. Some ramifications of this are:

It is no longer sufficient to be a good student or have a good general CS background to be a TA. Students need to stand out in some other way.
Students whose RA support or outside support is lapsing should not assume that they will be able to get a TA position instead. Such students are of course welcome to apply and will be considered along with all other applicants. However, they are not guaranteed a TA appointment.
Students who are TAs need to realize that it is no longer sufficient to do an "adequate but not great" job since there are unsupported students who could do a better job.

3.7. Special Requests from Faculty

Each semester we ask whether faculty have any special requests for TAs. Here are guidelines on this.

Students should be requested only if it will work out better for the faculty member and for the class. Faculty should know the students well enough to be sure this will be the case. So most, if not all, requests will be for students who have TAed the class before, taken the class before and excelled, worked with the faculty on a project, or have some other extremely strong credentials.

The department will not always be able to accommodate all special requests. So if a faculty member tells a student they will request them as a TA, that is not a guarantee that the department will make the student an offer. Special requests should be reserved for advanced classes. TA positions in service classes, required classes, and introductory elective classes will usually be filled by students who have a regular TA offer.

Special faculty requests should not be seen as an alternative way for an applicant to get a TA position. The normative way for such requests to originate is with the faculty member asking the student if they are interested, rather than students petitioning faculty.

Students hired due to instructor special requests are hired for a specific course to work with a specific professor, and unless that professor requests them again, they will not have special priority for future TA offers. This does preclude reappointing them --- they will be considered on the same basis as other unsupported students in the TA applicant pool. The one difference though is that we will have TA evaluation data on these students, and they should realize that since they have been hand-picked to TA a course where they should excel, the expectation is that they will excel. Students who do excel will boost their chances of getting a future TA offer, but students who do merely an adequate job decrease their chances.

3.8. Criteria

The primary criteria for getting or continuing a TA offer, as stated in GSH and the CS TA Web page FAQ are communication skills, teaching ability and quality of past TA performance, how well an applicant's area of interest matches with department TA needs, and whether the student is in the PhD program. These, as well as other, secondary, criteria, are explained below:

Communication skills: this includes the ability to speak clearly, explain CS concepts well, relate to students, faculty, and staff, write well, etc. International students whose native language is not English must pass the University TA language requirements to be eligible for a TA position.
Teaching ability and quality of past TA performance: this is measured by previous teaching experience, student evaluations, any faculty evaluations of TAs, etc.
How well applicants' areas of expertise match with departmental needs: Each semester there are some areas where it is difficult to find qualified applicants and some where there is a glut of applicants.
Ph.D. vs. Masters: the department gives preference in TA offers to Ph.D. students. M.S. students are considered only if there are no suitably qualified Ph.D. students available. (Students currently in the M.S. program who are in transition to the Ph.D. program are not considered Ph.D. students until the change is officially completed. Moreover, the department usually allows such a change only with strong faculty backing, which usually implies that the involved faculty member(s) will support the student with a research assistantship, rather than having the student rely on a teaching assistantship.) Moreover, MCS students are not eligible for CS&E TA appointments.
Degree progress: students should make appropriate degree progress. This means taking and passing an appropriate number of classes, fulfilling the various degree requirements in a reasonable time, not taking overlong to complete their degree, and (for Ph.D. students) getting an appropriate rating on their annual degree progress evaluation.
Whether a student was admitted with TA support: As mentioned above, students who get TA support as part of the admission process have priority in second year continuations.
Academic integrity: it is department policy that students with a record of academic dishonesty not be given TA offers [GSH; see also the sections on Ethical issues for TAs and Department Policy on Cheating by TAs in this handbook].
GPA: GPA is a lesser criterion that will be used to make coarse distinctions, not fine ones. For example, a 3.9 is not significantly better than a 3.8, but a 3.9 is significantly better than a 3.2.
Flexibility: some applicants are able or willing to TA only a small number of classes. This is not beneficial for their chances.
Seniority: seniority is a little complicated. One on hand, students who have been TAs for very long will have less chance if they exceed the 3 year aggregate TA support limit, or if they are not making satisfactory degree progress. On the other, students who were last hired in the previous semester will have less priority, if all else is equal, than students who have been TAs longer. Moreover, if all other things are equal, students who are currently TAs or who have recently been TAs will have priority for the next semester's offers over students who have not had a CS TA appointment, or who have not had a CS TA appointment recently.

3.9. Summer Appointments

It is department policy to "make summer appointments from among students who had an appointment in one of the semesters of the previous academic year." [GSH]. However, we employ less than a dozen TAs each summer, so these positions are quite competitive. Criteria that are weighed more heavily for summer appointments include whether the applicant was a new TA that came in with support the previous Fall (the rationale here is that these students have some priority since they will have fewer opportunities for other support than students who have been here longer), quality of TA work, and whether a student has prior TA experience in the specific classes being offered that summer.