Academe

This is a great thread! I'll talk about Indian situation, which is somewhat similar to the Brazilian one, but not exactly. The system is the same for the STEM and for the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences disciplines. India has a 3 years bachelor's degree, which will soon be changed to a 4-years degree, mostly to help those students who want to apply to the US universities, as the 3-years Indian Bachelor's is not regarded at par with the 4 years Bachelor's in the US. One can have an Honours (Major) and one or two optional subjects (Minor) in the Bachelor's level. Admission into Bachelor's is based on the % of marks one gets in the High school level - this is the only criteria for admission into college and hence, given the exploding population of India, there is a stiff competition for getting admission into prestigious colleges. After the Bachelor's, it is mandatory to go through the Master's before registering for a research degree. Bachelor's is not enough to apply for a PhD, as is the case in many Western countries. Entrance into Masters in the prestigious universities is based on a very competitive entrance test, in which hundreds of candidates compete for a few dozen seats. In lesser known universities, it is again based on the % of marks obtained in the Bachelor's level. Master's is a 2-years programme. After this, in top universities such as those in Delhi, it is mandatory to go through a 2 years MPhil (Master of Philosophy) before registering for a PhD. In other, lesser known universities, MPhil is not required and is not offered. Students go straight from the Masters to the PhD level. Again, in the top-level universities, admission into MPhil is based on a competitive exam, comprising of written test as well as an interview, in which a tentative research proposal is submitted and cross-examined by the faculty. Again, only about 10% of applicants can hope to gain admission into MPhil. MPhil is a research degree, spanning 2 years in the most rigorous universities, out of which first year has course work and the second year requires writing a dissertation and defending it in a viva before the dissertation committee and an external examiner. In some universities MPhil is of 18 months. Thus, a candidate registering for PhD in India already has 5-7 years of tertiary education. Those with MPhil have already written a post-Masters level dissertation and defended it. PhD admission in the most prestigious universities is based on the past grades, an application including a research proposal and an interview in which the faculty cross-examines the candidate on the research proposal and related questions. In lesser universities, the format of the admission is the same, but the procedure is less rigorous. PhD spans not less than 5 years in most cases in the most prestigious universities and in many cases can go upto 9 years (not including Masters and MPhil). On the other hand, lesser known universities can grant a PhD after 2 or 2 and a half years and the PhD is much less rigorous in these universities. In India, it's a good quality primary and secondary school education that is expensive and few people have the resources to get their children educated at these schools. But after one completes the school education, tertiary education is highly subsidised and one has to pay very nominal fees and needs to have money only for personal expenses. The University never asks a candidate whether they have the money to support their University education - it's the candidate's headache, not the University's - that's the difference between a developing country and a developed country. From Masters onwards, most candidates get a scholarship for fees and personal expenses and for MPhil and PhD, one can get a luxurious fellowship on passing a highly competitive fellowship exam. Resources in Sciences labs vary from being very well-funded at prestigious universities to being strapped for resources at other places. All the Universities and most of the Engineering and Medicine institutions are owned and funded by the government. Private institutions are lesser in number and are much lower in prestige value than the government-owned ones. There are some run by the Christian Missionaries, funded by the Churches in the West that are regarded as prestigious, but these are few in number. Engineering Bachelor's is a 4 years degree and hence, at par with the US degree. The IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) are very prestigious and IIT undergraduates get either a funded admission or a job offer in the US and other Western countries quite easily. Post-Bachelor's, engineering students can get an MTech and a PhD if they like. Admission is again based on competitive entrance exams in BTech, MTech and PhD levels. The Engineering entrance exam is highly competitive and out of thousands who appear, only a few hundred qualify. Similarly, MBBS degree is of 4 years and admission is based o a highly competitive exam. After the MBBS, one can get an MS and go for super-specialization if one wishes. All admissions are based on very competitive entrance exams. Engineering and MBBS degrees are much more expensive than the normal college and University degrees in other subjects. Besides the government-run moderately priced institutions, there are many private institutions where large amount of money is required to get these degrees. One can get a Master's in Business Administration (MBA) after a Bachelor's in any subject. Admission into MBA programmes is based on very competitive entrance exams and these programmes are usually very expensive. In India, a PhD is not necessary to get a regular job in a University. High Second Class Master's is the required degree, along with passing an eligibility exam conducted by the government for getting into university jobs. All University jobs are government jobs. In more recent years, the government has made rules about granting points for publications and conference papers. However, there is no check on where the publications should come from and where papers should be presented. The emphasis is more on quantity rather than quality. Hence, immediately after getting a Master's, candidates begin to look for academic jobs. Given the swelling population of India, each year the number of candidates multiplies by several-fold. This causes stiff competition - almost cruel in nature. There are large number of candidates having same qualifications applying for very few jobs. This means, that appointments in reality are not based on merit and knowledge of a candidate, but on what kind of powerful contacts one has. The result is that almost always quality is compromised and mediocrity is very consciously promoted. This is the bane of Indian academia. To add to the problem, Indian work laws provide that a person in a regular job - called a "permanent job" in India - at par with the tenured jobs in the US - can't be fired. They get all the health, travel and living benefits over the salary and don't have to face any serious quality checks in their work. They need to show some publications for promotion, but there is no check on where the publication should come from. It's easy to show the required number of publications and keep on getting promoted. Because mostly mediocre people are hired and the more brilliant researchers are sidelined, these people who get the jobs, try to suppress innovative research from their students - because they suffer from a sense of insecurity. This happens in all universities of India - including the most prestigious ones. So, the problem in Indian academia is not that there is any lack of talent, resources or universities with good infrastructure. The problem is that innovative, critical research of younger scholars is consciously killed by their seniors. Because of this, most talented candidates try to leave India as soon as possible after getting a Master's degree - because Indian 3 years Bachelor's is not accepted in the West. They leave not because there is any lack of resources, but because they know they can't grow after a certain stage. From the prestigious institutions, in the STEM disciplines the emigration to the West after Master's or even after PhD is almost 100% - same as from the IITs. In the Arts, Humanities and in the Social Sciences, emigration happens after Master's or MPhil stage for Master's or PhD admission in the West. The % of emigration is lesser because even in the West there are lesser opportunities in these disciplines. But whoever is a good researcher and knows it, leaves. Only such people stay in the Indian academia, who are mediocre, but know they can use non-academic routes to get a permanent job in India - from where they can't be fired. Thus, a person who has a regular job in an Indian university is more likely than not to be a mediocre academic. Those who have taken a long time to find their feet despite a good publication record are likely to be much better than those who have got the job. And eventually they do find their way out of India at some stage. This is really the problem with the Indian academic system, not the lack of resources. And as far as I can see, it can't be solved.

I feel one should take all these lists - NRC, US News, Times, QS and compare them for one's discipline. But more than that, ask the department what their graduates from last 3 years are doing now. That's a much better index of "Ranking." It's right that Indian candidates shouldn't pay a heavy sum to get into a low-ranked non-funded programme just because it's in the US. This way, only the Universities and the education counselors make money at the candidate's expense. These low-ranked degrees are not worth much in the job market. Many candidates have been misled by the education counselors this way. It's a much better idea to get a Master's from a top-ranking Indian institution and then come to the US for a funded PhD at a well-ranked university. Top-ranking Masters from India offer much better prospects for well-respected funded PhD admissions in the US than low-ranked US Masters that don't lead the candidate anywhere, either in job or in higher research.

There is going to be a lecture on Environmental Archaeology by an expert from the prestigious Institute of Archaeology, UCL, London, UK, followed by an exotic trip to Maldives (Exit and back to New Delhi, India). The tentative period will be in 3rd Week of February 2013. Costs will be reasonable. Certificate of Attendance will be provided. All those interested please send me your interest message by PM.

AW Scores on the GRE can be quite misleading. If your writing sample shows clear, critical, analytical and innovative writing style, perhaps it will make up for the GRE-AW score. If you are also submitting TOEFL/IELTS scores and if they are good, they will also make up for it.