What are Academic Conferences (And Why Should You Care)?

The beginning of a new school year also marks the start of the academic conference season. Some colleges and career offices do a great job relaying the importance of attending professional and academic conferences. Others don’t get to it.

ACADEMIC CONFERENCES: UNDERGRADUATES

Did you know there’s a professional association that allows undergraduate student members in nearly every field—from construction management to French literature, from neuroscience to East Asian studies, from anthropology to entrepreneurship?

Did you also know that many colleges offer conference presentation funding to their undergraduates? And that faculty are expected to workshop their research at academic conferences annually?

Students at Brown University are eligible for $500 in funding if they present at an academic conference via their Research Travel Fund.
New York University gives students up to $1,200 and even has a Conference Attendance Grant, not just for presenters.
Cornell CALS gives $1,500 via their Morley Student Research Grants.
The University of Georgia also gives $1,500 and calls it a Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities Grant.

ACADEMIC CONFERENCES: GRADUATE SCHOOL

If you’re a working professional, see if your employer will fund research conference attendance for you. It’s resume building for you, engagement with top faculty, scholars, practitioners and leaders in your field, plus a potential PR push for them as well as some employee retention points.

Let’s say your field is psychology, a popular field for Top Tier Admissions students. Here are some sample academic conferences this upcoming year that would be worth exploring:

National Alliance on Mental Illness: Aug. 23-25, 2023 annual conference in Sacramento, CA. This year’s sessions are on mental health performance, helping underserved communities, and increasing access to mental health services. Check back for 2024 dates!

California Psychological Association Annual Conference: Sept. 7-10 in San Diego, CA. As their site notes: Join us for engaging workshops, meaningful discussions, and networking with your colleagues. Face-to-face meetings provide a unique opportunity to build relationships and learn from thought leaders in psychology and from each other.

Psychology and the Other Annual Conference: Oct. 6-8 at Boston College in Boston and online. Speakers from UPenn, Harvard, Yale and UConn are on the conference program.

Society for Personality and Social Psychology Conference: Feb. 8-10, 2024 in San Diego, CA and online. Since it’s an early 2024 conference, they’ll accept abstract submissions (for those who want to present, including high schoolers, college students and working professionals) into late September 2023.) As their site notes: Poster submissions (both single presenter and undergraduate) are accepted until September 14, 2023; and Research Spotlight (Virtual) and Unconference Roundtable submissions are accepted until September 14, 2023.

International Convention of Psychological Science Annual Meeting: May 23-26, 2024 in San Francisco. The association that sponsors this conference, called the Association for Psychological Science also has special student programing at each of their annual conferences. Hosted by the APS Student Caucus, these student-friendly sessions (for high school, college and graduate school attendees) include panels on the field, graduate school pathways, networking opportunities, speakers from assorted disciplines and more.

Career Planning and Academic Advising

Clear, informed career planning and academic / extracurricular advising.

ENROLL NOW

If you’re seeking to boost the research section of your resume or CV, pursuing an academic conference this year would be a great goal. With a research grant, it’s a win-win: lower travel expenses, conference experience, and a research award for your resume.

We’d love to help research conferences (or publication outlets!) in YOUR field that you could attend, present at and perhaps even win a research grant award for. Believe it or not, that’s PART of the graduate school admissions process. Reach out to us!

PS. High school students, this is for you, too! Attending academic conferences is a great way to connect with faculty in your field of interest and to set yourself apart from other applicants by demonstrating your intellectual curiosity.

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Dr. Kristen Willmott

Senior Private Counselor & Graduate School Admissions Director at Top Tier Admissions

Having worked as an Admissions and Financial Aid Officer for Harvard University for four years, Kristen brings a depth of experience to Top Tier Admissions. She has over 20 years of experience working in higher education. Kristen has a PhD in Education with a concentration in Higher Education from the University of Rochester, an M.S. in Business Management from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and a B.A. in English from Ithaca College. Her PhD dissertation won the International Susan B. Anthony Institute Dissertation Award. In her role at Harvard, Kristen oversaw admissions for 17 departments and was also responsible for distributing funding from the National Science Foundation Fellowships Program and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Student Research Fellowship Program. Kristen has previously worked as a substitute K-12 teacher, as adjunct faculty at three universities in MA and NY, and as an educational researcher having recently (Oct. 2020) published a book on faculty in academia and in academic journals such as the Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs, Academic Leadership Journal, and the American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences Journal.

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