...an update

Toward the end of last year, my wife and I sat down and discussed my academic aspirations.   I had a very in-depth discussion with my employer, and after much obsessive analysis, we decided to postpone our academic plans for a year.

There are positives and negatives to this strategy:

Cons:

• Age: I just passed the 3 decade mark; an additional year means a lot more at 30 than it does at 23.
• Children: moving away in Fall of '12 means my children will be in their mid-teens when I'm done with the program--not the greatest time to pack up and move across country to my first academic position.

Pros:

• A chance to improve my SOP: I'm working on a few research projects; this year will (I hope) bring one (and possibly two) acceptances to well-respected journals; I'm first author on one of the papers.  All in all, this has to be a huge positive from the adcom perspective.
• Cultivate relationships: the research I'm working on is with researchers from schools I'll be applying to.  Further, I'm attending a number of conferences this year; that'll be a great opportunity to network with researchers within the field.
• Conference presentations: I've had three additional conference acceptances (all at top conferences) this year. 
• Finances: I have an additional year to get things in place financially in preparation for the drastic reduction in income while in the program.

All in all, it was the right strategy.  I suspect, given my somewhat weak undergrad record, the additional research experience and the relationship with researchers that I'll develop this year will do much to earn my a better placement than I'd have achieved had I applied last year.

I think that the greatest gain over the past 6 months or so has been the reassurance that I've selected the right path.  There were still some slight doubts last year as to whether leaving a great job at a great organization making good money was the path for me.  But the additional research experience has all but settled it for me; I have no doubts that this is the right course for me (and, interestingly, the past few months seem to have reassured my wife as well).

So, I have a few more months to work before next application round.  In the meantime, good luck to those of you who applied this round; hope my "spot" (wherever that might've been) goes to a stellar candidate who does something incredible in the field!